


Switch

by Xillien



Category: Naruto
Genre: BAMF Haruno Sakura, BAMF Hatake Kakashi, BAMF Uchiha Sasuke, BAMF Uzumaki Naruto, Blood and Gore, Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto)-centric, Swearing, Will add more tags as I go, mention of suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-03-17 12:38:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18965404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xillien/pseuds/Xillien
Summary: Kakashi was tired. When he (reluctantly) passed those kids they seemed to have been able to at least bear each others’ presence! Now he was sure that they had been pretending and somehow managed to fool him. (Him. One of the best jounin in the village. People didn’t simply hide things from him successfully. Especially when they were civilian! And Academy graduates were little better than civilians. They weren’t anywhere near genin level.)In which Kakashi is completely done with Team 7's bullshit and decides to forcefully make them mature by switching Team 7's minds into each other's bodies.





	1. Chapter 1

“Naruto, you idiot! Can you maybe think for _a second?!”_

“You’re so useless.”

“You prick! Come help me! Teamwork, remember?”

“How can you be unable to manage to stick a leaf to your hand?! That’s the easiest exercise you can do with chakra! … What do you mean, what’s chakra! Are you _kidding_ me?”

“You’re weak. Can’t even run a single lap around this training ground…”

“Why are you so rude! None of us did _anything_ to provoke you!”

Kakashi was tired. When he (reluctantly) passed those kids they seemed to have been able to at least bear each others’ presence! Now he was sure that they had been pretending and somehow managed to fool him. ( _Him._ One of the best jounin in the village. _People didn’t simply hide things from him successfully._ Especially when they were _civilian!_ And Academy graduates were little better than civilians. They weren’t anywhere _near_ genin level.)

He was so used to working in professional squads! Even when he had been Tenzo’s teacher who had been just a year or so older than them it was a completely different workspace! Why did the Hokage make him leave ANBU? At least there he earned a lot of money for his suffering. Now? The monthly stipend for the teacher’s position was a joke! A very unfunny joke at that. God help him, he wanted out. After (wait for it) _a week._ It had barely been a week and he already wanted to wash his hands clean of these brats!

He had already gone to the Hokage to request a swap with some other team that wasn’t filled with unwilling to work with each other idiots. _He_ had said no. _He_ had the gall to laugh at Kakashi! As if he found his miserable suffering _funny!_

Kakashi was _done._ They would be getting over themselves and they would do it quickly! No more dieting, squabbling, idiocy or laziness! He was _not_ going to deal with this for years! Rin and Obito had both taken two years to become chuunin and they still went on missions with him (a jounin) and with Minato-sensei (an absolute legend). After all the administration changes over the years he doubted (hoped) that that had changed.

Now, one might ask how he was planning to do all those things… Simple!

He just wondered how he could make some other people take over some responsibility…

* * *

Sakura woke up sluggishly to the screeching of an alarm. She was used to being woken up at horrifyingly early times because of the _whole week_ that she had been a genin. Kakashi-sensei would always come at a different time, and made anybody who showed up after him do tonnes of laps in punishment. She stood up shakily and swayed slightly on her feet. Why was her balance completely thrown? She looked down at her feet blearily and noted the completely different clothes from the ones that she had thought she put on the previous night.

She stretched, looking for her robe to protect her from the chill that was around. There was no robe. Has her mom taken it to wash it?

She noticed the unfamiliarity of the flat, if it could be called that. There was a lot of garbage everywhere, so much so, that she could barely see the floor. The place looked very run down and it stunk to high heavens. She frowned in concern. Had she been kidnapped? She panicked for a little bit and had to remind herself that she was a ninja now, she would be able to protect herself! She walked (stumbled, really) to the other rooms checking for any enemies.

Why did she feel so disconnected from her chakra? She closed her eyes and tried to _focus_ on herself. Why was it so hard? She was so confused! Did her kidnappers meddle with her chakra in some way? Fine, then. She’d do it the simple way. She went over to the broken mirror in the bathroom, expecting to see her maybe a bit bedraggled body.

Instead…

She screeched. _No no no!_ What did she… what did _they_ do last night and why was she inhibiting _Naruto’s_ body? Oh, they’d regret this, that was for sure! She gathered herself to her feet and wondered what she should do. Was it a genjutsu? Everything was really weird, which was a sure sign of one, according to Kakashi. She gathered her? Naruto’s? chakra, but instead of working with her like it usually did, it kind of farted instead. She didn’t even know how chakra could fart! And yet it did. That was so Naruto! Now she knew for certain that the chakra wasn’t hers! How was she supposed to end the genjutsu now?

Well then. Obviously she’d have to go out to gather intel. As she searched through the flat for the orange monstrosity that Naruto wore all the time, she silently prayed that she hadn’t gone completely crazy overnight. Finally, after a good fifteen minutes she found it buried under multiple leftover cups of ramen. Note to self; if Naruto really ate all that crap, his body was probably severely depleted of vitamins and other very essential nutritional necessities. If she were to stay in his body, she’d need to change that completely. Why the hell was she thinking that? Of course she’d go back to her own body!

She looked at the disgusting thing. When was it washed last? She looked it over for stains. Honestly, it was one big stain. She idly wondered if the bodysuit would be able to walk without her help any time soon. She shuddered. To hell with trying to look like Naruto. She’d just tell everybody who asked that she’d changed her mind about it! There was no way she’d touch it _ever again._ She quickly walked over to the trash can and paused looking at it. But wouldn’t people find it very suspicious that he suddenly changed everything about himself?

Would they think she was a spy? Would they kill her for it? She stared at the atrocity, not actually seeing anything besides smudgy smudge, silently praying for this awful joke to be over. She shakily started changing into the monstrosity, before realizing that surely, Naruto had other clothes as well! Nobody would notice if she wore a protective layer under it! She grinned to herself, feeling very happy to have solved her problem and started searching for a closet.

Did Naruto not own any clothes beside his jumpsuit? Is that why every time she had ever seen him he was wearing the same thing? But oh, no. Actually he had a full closet of nice and clean clothes. And when she said clean, she really meant _never worn before._ She could smell the newness on them. She sniffed, only to be assaulted by a plethora of smells. What the hell was going on?

She quickly dressed herself, somehow dealing with the emotional trauma that was changing out of pajamas. It just… dangled awkwardly. She walked over to the fridge already wary of what was going to meet her on the other side of the door. Her cautious approach did nothing to help her deal with the stench that was around her. She opened the fridge and heaved a sigh of relief. It was nearly empty, only containing a carton of milk and some cereal.

‘Woah, that dumbass!’ she blinked stupidly at the cereal. She was starting to really worry about Naruto’s mental health. She took the milk and sniffed it, only barely managing to not drop it on the floor. It appeared that she’d be getting no breakfast.

She started leaving the apartment and she instinctively reached for the hanger that should contain her keys… Where were the keys?! How was she supposed to find them in this huge mess? She calculatingly thought about just leaving it as it was… But how was she supposed to get out without opening the door?

She looked with trepidation at the window that looked out on a stinking back alley. It was only two floors… She really wasn’t sure if she’d be able to safely land. Well, whatever. She didn’t have any other options so she might as well do it now. She opened the window and peaked at the dirty stone that lined the alley. She was Naruto now! So it would be _Naruto’s_ problem if something happened to his body. And with her being unable to find the keys to his apartment in the huge mess he generated it was all his fault as well. She jumped.

_Ow._

Maybe she should have simply broken down the door? She gathered what was left of her dignity (she was actually proud of her chakra control, goddammit!) and dragged herself to their training ground.

She could see one silver lining; she could more or less walk by this point. She stumbled only every twentieth step, which was a definitive improvement.

She arrived at the training ground to find a small Sakura already sitting there. She felt a small surge of hope. Maybe if she got close enough to her own body, it would reset itself? She started walking faster no longer paying attention to keeping herself upright. She ignored the three times she nearly flattened herself accidentally to the ground on a root.

Just as she was approaching the others (and wasn’t it weird that she was the last one there in a true Naruto-esque manner? she was normally the first one there! Why did Naruto set his alarm so late?

She saw her body throw itself at Sasuke as if it weren't a day different from the others, as if she wasn't trapped in Naruto's body instead. Was that really how she looked? Wow. Her qipao really did clash with her hair, didn't it? She watched as Sakura chattered at Sasuke who was resolutely ignoring her as always. Did she really look so pathetic? She really would need to change that dress… Maybe brown? That was a nice color, right?

How was it possible for her to see her own body like this? The feeling of being stuck in a genjutsu returned. She tried to make Naruto's chakra submit enough for her to try to expel the genjutsu only to fail in a truly pathetic way. Has the idiot ever done any chakra control exercises? It didn't seem like it at all. She picked up a leaf from the ground with purpose in her eyes.

She tried to stick the leaf to her hand but it was quite stubbornly twitching slightly in the light breeze. This was just pathetic! She was _the_ chakra control master in her whole class. This leaf would submit to her will! She zeroed in on it, pouring in all the chakra that it was going to take. She kept pushing, and pushing... Until suddenly the leaf was on fire, her hand was starting to smoke as well. She screeched in horror, wholly uncaring of how Sakura-impersonator and Sasuke would react.

She waved her hand around as she dropped the leaf to the ground and looked hopefully at Sasuke, hoping that he would pay attention to her at least a little bit. He didn’t. She huffed, and reached for the next leaf. She didn’t know any other chakra exercises either way (it’s not like she had ever needed any others).

As she looked at the ground to see no fire, she decided it all must have been a hallucination! It simply wasn’t possible that the leaf started burning. It had never happened to her before, so why would it happen now? She picked up a second leaf and stared down at it with maniacal desperation in her eyes. She _would_ the idiot’s chakra control! How else was she supposed to cope as a ninja? Her skills were at risk!

* * *

He woke up to an alarm and shot up on his bed. He hadn’t used an alarm in five years! He looked around the room warily and noticed with terror the general pinkness of the room. What was going on? Did Kakashi kidnap him? Was he secretly a traitor that was going to try to brainwash him? He crouched down to the floor warily, eying his surroundings for some kunai. There were none.

‘This room must belong to a civilian.’ he thought with contempt (civilians were pathetic. they treated him as the second coming of the log when they were talking to him, but laughed and jeered at him from behind his back. (his superior shinobi skills made it possible for him to hear better than some lame person)) and attempted to open the window. ‘It wouldn’t do to walk right into his captor’s hands. Best run now.’ It wouldn’t open. He muttered angrily under his breath, going for a punch in the window’s general vicinity, when a terrifying holler came from the other side of The Door. It was the only Door in the room. He tried to open the window once more, but surrendered when he heard another wail. Best not anger the scream-producer and go.

He crawled inconspicuously towards the stairs, thinking intensely; ‘I’m invisible, you can’t see me, I’m a Great Shinobi, nobody can win with me! (except for that bastard, That Man)’ He toed carefully down the stairs, trying to emit as little sound as possible. His superior senses would help him heroically break out of this prison!

“SAKURA?! DID YOU WAKE UP YET?!” came a sudden, barbarically loud voice from a foot off from his position. He shrieked and clutched at his chest willing to swear that he was having a heart attack. The woman turned in his direction and _looomed_ over him. “Sakura! Is that another one of your phases? Oh my Log, I’d have thought you’d grown that out already!”

Now, Sasuke might have been an orphan for a bit, but that doesn’t mean he forgot to react to _that._ He huffed. He gathered some air into his lungs just to get ready to shriek Sakura-style (ultra annoying and irritating). “It’s not a phase, mooom! This is who I am!”

After she laughed at him for a long, _long_ while, he finally managed to drag himself to the training ground. Nobody else was there, even though he could have sworn he was going to be very late when he had been leaving the House. He sat at the bridge, staring at the water flowing beneath him. It just moved, it didn’t think. It didn’t matter to it where it was going, or if an old, ugly woman that had some problems with cleanliness went into it to wash herself, foregoing a towel and flashing a poor eight-year-old. ‘Yes, the world was bad,’ he thought to himself sadly. ‘Maybe that’s where my hatred of women came from?’ he pondered. Or maybe it was because he knew damn well that his mother was an awesome jounin that trained to That Day, and yet let herself get turned into a [shishkebab](https://en.bab.la/dictionary/english-polish/shishkebab) just because she didn’t feel like raising him anymore.

Although, his father had done the exact same thing… Well, it wasn’t like he hated men any less than women, so…

His train of thought was interrupted by Sasuke arriving. That bastard! But wait! Sasuke didn’t talk! Yes! Back to the riv… “Hello, Sasuke-kun!” he heard himself say. And he did mean himself. Not that traitory piece of meat that was standing next to him. “Hn.” He heard himself say. Now this time… Maybe he should call the other Sasuke, Shisui? It’s not like he could be hecked to think up another name. What works, works. What doesn’t, doesn’t; like the clock he had in his room. Although maybe it was for the better… “What nice weather we have today, don’t you think?” …it no longer kept him up at night. Honestly, his father had been… a not-so-nice man (Oh, no! He cussed at Mister Father! Now… Wait. Father was dead.) a dick! (ha!) and made him keep it. He said it was to toughen him up, but Sasuke… or was it Shisui? After all he had been in Shisui’s body back then…

“The water is quite clear today! I’ve spent about two hours staring at it!” He had decided to throw in his two cents as well. Why let… Some Other Sasuke tell him what to speak? Maybe he should name _that_ Sasuke Obito? Yeah, why not! “What do you think Kakashi-sensei will make us do today?” Obito asked as if it weren’t the most boring question _in the universe._ Honestly, anything was better!

“Oh?” Obito encouraged.

“If, according to the semiotician, [Bob Hodge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Hodge_\(linguist\)), ideology "identifies a unitary object that incorporates complex sets of meanings with the social agents and processes that produced them and no other term captures this object as well as 'ideology'”, but [Foucault](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault)'s '[episteme](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episteme)' is too narrow and abstract, not social enough - 'worldview' is too metaphysical, 'propaganda' - too loaded. Despite or because of its contradictions, 'ideology' still plays a key role in semiotics oriented to social and political life. Why did authors such as [Michael Freeden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Freeden) also recently incorporate a [semantic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics) analysis to the study of ideologies? The limits of It have clearly already been determined.” He said staring into The Abyss. (It said ‘hi’, by the way.)

Shisui was staring at him as if he didn’t understand his question. Wasn’t he supposed to be some kind of a prodigy? ‘Obito?’ he asked, ‘What do you think?’ The Voice giggled, but didn’t reply. _Rude._ He was about to ask Kagami next, when Naruto entered the clearing. But wait! What if it wasn’t Naruto?! He would not be deceived! From now on, Naruto was Jon!

“Hey, Sakura-chan!!!!!!” how Jon managed to add multiple exclamation marks at the end of his words was still a mystery. “WANT to go!! out. for? RRamen???????” Ah, Jon. Such a weirdo.

* * *

Naruto woke up. There was no alarm. For a second he felt panic. He would be late. He would have to do laps for the entire time that Kakashi were there! That would be bad! Very, very bad! He noticed he was standing in the kitchen, making an omelette. ‘But I don’t know how to do an omelette!’ The voice was quickly quieted. It was time for an adventure! No time to whine and moan!

He noticed he was eating the omelette. He scowled. It was absolutely disgusting. So tasteless! But at the same time, way too salty and… sweet? What on the Log? How was he supposed to be ready for his _fun, happy and **interesting**_ adventure today if he was eating this trash? Naruto scowled. (Konoha shook in it’s foundations, the wood cracked with unrest) He took another bite. He would not fail at eating breakfast!(Konoha shuddered visibly, sending thousands of civilians and naive little genin to the groung)

He glowered, even more ired, and pushed that excuse of a breakfast away. (Konoha let out a sigh of relief. It would continue to stand for the day. The danger had passed.) He walked off, doing his absolute best to project his negative feelings onto the world. (Just like the bastard!)

While walking to the training grounds he happened upon a black cat that was trapped on a tree. Naruto’s protectiveness flared up. He went over to it, fussing about the poor creature’s unfortunate situation. He jumped on the tree, to help the wretched thing. He woke up an unspecified amount of time later, mouth full of dirt about 50 meters from where he had been before. His arm ached and he could feel blood flowing lightly from a gash on one of his knees. He grumpily lied back waiting for his injuries to disappear… and waited…

Why wasn’t this body working?! Did the bastard break it in some way? That was just like him! Naruto was already done with this day. He dragged himself from the floor and refrained himself from cussing the cat out (barely). He limped to the training grounds, whining every few seconds from the weird pain. When he arrived to the grounds, he saw Sakura sitting on the bridge as usual.

He sat down next to her, grateful for the fact he wasn’t actually the bastard. He would enjoy the quiet for once. After all, Sakura would surely ignore him as usual. She was very smart after all and would never be deceived by such a petty thing as an unmatched body!

“Hello, Sasuke-kun!” Sakura’s _loud,_ cheerful voice drilled into his head. As it appeared appearances (he giggled inwardly) deceived even the best of them.

“Hn.” he grunted angrily at her, very thankful that nothing more would be expected of him. When he’d imagined Sakura paying attention to him, he had imagined it much, _much_ differently.

“What nice weather we have today, don’t you think?” she asked _again,_ in that disgusting sugary tone. “Hn.” he hissed through his teeth thinking of all the ways she could be shut up.

“If, according to the semiotician…” Her voice blasted through his head, making his painful injuries even more painful. And after she was finished with the overlong, overcomplicated torture of a question, she had the gall to look expectant, that wench. He was _so done_ already.

* * *

Kakashi cackled maniacally while the little pain-in-the-ass’s pain. His little plan to teach these children empathy was on and it was absolutely magnificent. He watched as Sakura jumped out the window in desperation not even thinking to _check_ if Naruto’s apartment was open. As if the Hokage would ever do anything to teach Naruto responsibility and give the boy a key to take care of.

He took out his book that today was a disguise for a notepad with all the notes on his younglings attached (it wasn’t much). He looked over Sakura’s file (he could _not_ be bothered to do anything when he was off work if he wasn’t sufficiently rewarded for his time). He noted the “95th percentile chakra control” that was written down right next to the “5th percentile chakra capacity". Well, no wonder. It really wasn’t hard to have such great control with such horrible capacity. Why the hell was she stumbling so much? Was she drunk?

He had to get over his dismayed shock very fast because of the weirded out civilian expressions. He quickly cast a genjutsu to veil Sakura’s weird walk and nodded at every questioning glance thrown his way by the competent shinobi. Sakura didn’t notice a thing, of course. Where all genin so bad at surviving? She didn’t even notice the genjutsu that he cast on her that made her walk in huge circles instead of efficiently cutting through the town like a shinobi should.

When he got bored of making her run around (it would be much more satisfying when she’d be in her own body and had the stamina of ‘an old lady’, quoting the report) he let her arrive at the training ground. He watched as she sped up after seeing Sasuke. _Why_ was she having so many problems standing upright? And, just as important: _why_ was she so pathetic? No self-respecting kunoichi would or should act like that.

She was staring at something, looking visibly disgruntled. Was she seeing what a pathetic person she was? Was that recognition in her eyes? Would he be getting some character development? She seemed to come to a conclusion because she gathered herself and restarted walking. He managed to catch her low mutter of: “Yeah, brown will be better!” Why was he even trying? How would some color help in her overall development?

Although, to her credit, she did try doing some chakra exercises. They were completely wrong for Naruto’s huge chakra stores (apparently at the 97th percentile and growing very rapidly - only the Hokage and the jounin who trained their stores their whole lives had better capacity than him), true. (And, oh, wasn’t it completely tragic that they weren’t even able to measure Naruto’s chakra control? He wasn’t even able to charge his chakra into the test page, something that should have made it impossible for him to even become a genin. If Naruto weren’t a jinchuuriki, he’d never have graduated.)

His Shadow Clones dissipated sending him way more information than he could ever deal with. How Naruto could deal with thousands of minutes of his own experiences shoved into his head in a second, he would never know.

Sakura definitely needed the most help from the three of them at the moment. Considering that the others were a joker that didn’t seem to take anything seriously, much less his life and a boy on a straight way to becoming a sociopath, it spoke volumes about her. (He guessed that it also said something about the boys.) He’d have to have a little talk with her about her behavior. For now he needed to make her act like a kunoichi.

If she thought she could be his student and make him put all the effort into training her only for her to get knocked up at twenty and settle down at home to be a damned housewife like so many kunoichi do, she was mistaken. He would _not_ let her. He would _also_ not let her diet, or have anything resembling a fashion statement until she could live through while possessing them. Honestly, whose genius idea was it to dress a little horrible at her job genin in vibrant red?

He also made sure to genjutsu the children to see what he wanted them to see. Honestly. If they didn’t want him to fuck with their brains, why were they letting his plethora of genjutsu stick and stay and never dispelled them? Illogical. He cheerfully took out his notebook and after a quick review of his notes confirmed mentally what type of exercises he’d assign them.

“Alright, my cute little students!” No, they weren’t. They were little monsters that he got saddled with because the Hokage was the council’s little bitch. “We’ll be doing physical conditioning in the morning! Naruto!” Sasuke jerked and his mouth started moving, in what Kakashi assumed was a reply to his call. “Sasuke, are you Naruto today?” The boy jerked and looked around in a guilty manner, not looking at Kakashi. So transparent! “Naruto!” he snapped at Sakura wondering how many times he’d have to repeat himself before she _remembered_. Honestly, she seemed quite daft.

“Oh! _I’m_ Naruto!” Sakura exclaimed, making the boys look at her in a slightly weirded out manner. Yeah, same actually.

He gave her an eye-smile. “That’s right!” It was time to begin the training! He patted her on her head and handed her a small piece of a chocolate candy. He would train the correct response to her sooner or later. Maybe he should bring a bell…? She took the candy cautiously and started pocketing it. “Well, won’t you eat it?” He asked imploringly. She did. Ah, social pressure, how he loved it.

“You will stay here to talk with me for a few minutes. The rest of you, start jogging around Konoha. I expect you to do five laps, no chakra before lunch!” They all let out sounds of horror as if it wasn’t the most simple thing he was going to make them do today. He wondered how many they’d actually manage. One? Oh, he’ll be generous and say two. Not Sakura’s body though. Sasuke would definitely not manage a lap while being inside of it. Not what he’d call it ever again from now on. “Well? Off you go!” Sasuke was so determined to kill Itachi, it was so cute! Kakashi was sure he’d be able to get Sakura’s body up to scratch pretty quickly. Sakura would take care of Naruto’s chakra control. What could Naruto do for Sasuke though? He guessed that Naruto could take care of Sasuke’s not optimal stamina, although Sakura had him beat by a mile in terms of having bad endurance.

“So, Sakura.” He watched as comprehension dawned on her visibly. He could feel the screech coming. He did not wish to hear it. Diversion tactics it was! “How long are you planning on playing shinobi?” He gave her a moment to gather her wits. After all slightly stupid people needed to have the playing field a bit more level.

“I’m not… playing! I’m a shinobi!” she said in her horribly high, whiny voice. How did she manage to make Naruto’s voice go that far up? God, was she annoying.

“Now, now, Sakura!” he pleasantly interjected. “Did you know that you’re severely underweight?” he observed her shock casually. “That’s right. Do you know what that means for you in practice? Your stamina is a joke. You are weak. You don’t feel as good as you could if you were eating properly. Your body doesn’t produce as much chakra as it could. You probably don’t eat much, do you? You definitely haven’t the past few days.” she sputtered. “That’s right, I was watching you. And I will be watching you in the future. If I see Naruto’s body getting slimmer I will add onto your training. You _will_ stop starving yourself. Are we clear?” he firmly said.

She nodded mutely. “Go run.” he said tiredly.

* * *

The first one to get the lap done was, unsurprisingly, Sakura. She looked completely bewildered when he told her. Was it the low self-esteem at work?

“Do you see now, Sakura? Your body could work just as well if only you didn’t sabotage it at every possibility.” he said just to hammer out the matter, conveniently forgetting to mention the chakra construct full of hate inside Naruto’s stomach.

She nodded quietly and took off again.

Had he been too harsh?

Who was he kidding? He didn’t care.

The next one there was Naruto, who was taking stuttered breaths, looking ready to pass out. He also seemed to be gritting his teeth as if he were in pain. Very interesting. “My, my. It looks like somebody has forgotten the basics of running!” Kakashi scolded lightly and joined the kid in running. He started correcting Naruto’s form trying not to get annoyed with how many times he had to repeat everything. Naruto had such a thick scull. He stayed with him until they passed Sasuke about halfway through the first lap.

 

The emo kid looked ready to pass out. Kakashi was impressed that he managed to stay upright for so long. He slowed down to a march and waited until Sasuke did, too.

“What do you think of Team 7, Sasuke?” he asked casually. He needed to assess how much he needed to change Sasuke’s psyche. What would it take to make him believe in teamwork? To make him a good enough liar that only Kakashi would be able to read him? To make the people believe that he was no longer a flight risk. And for that matter, to convince him that Konoha was the ultimate good that was more important than himself, or his family. Itachi had been convinced easily enough.

“Hn.” How annoying. The brat _would_ spill his every secret to him. Kakashi weaved a _teeny, tiny_ genjutsu on him, poking him mentally into fessing up.

“It’s annoying.” Sasuke grudgingly admitted. He was annoying. Honestly, Kakashi was very tempted to just prohibit the brats from using the word. It was too hypocritical.

“Oh? Why?” He said pretending as if he wasn’t completely done with the children’s bullshit. Honestly, they were so juvenile! He was sure _he_ wasn’t like this when he’d been twelve.

“The idiot and the fangirl are completely annoying.” Sasuke muttered after another poke. “Why are they even shinobi if they can’t focus on training? What’s the point?” Kakashi agreed. Fervently.

“I’m changing that right now.” he confessed reasonably sure that the boy had probably already gathered as much. If he hadn’t, he was a dumbass.

“How are you going to do that? How can you make them into something less useless? Sakura doesn’t even own kunai!” Maybe he’d gone a bit overboard with that genjutsu? Sasuke was starting to be quite talkative… Although worrying (as Kakashi could easily believe that the girl didn’t in fact own any weapons - which was blasphemous - she was a soldier! one that would have to kill in the near future!), Kakashi set on changing Sasuke’s view.

“It’s true that Sakura’s… not an exemplary kunoichi. But I’m working on it. You can feel the state of her body and how it compares to yours, don’t you?”

“Yes. It’s horrible! I was actually out of breath after walking over to the training ground!”

Kakashi made a pensive noise, pushing the boy’s mind into empathy. It wasn’t that hard to do. He decided to be painfully honest. “Did you know she diets?” he prodded. The absolute confusion on the boy’s face was comical. “You do know what a diet is, don’t you?” an affronted stare. He increased the pressure on the boy’s mind again. “Well, I’m going to be taking care of that. Sakura isn’t actually completely useless though.” Sasuke didn’t seem to believe him. “She has exemplary chakra control, something that Naruto severely lacks. Naruto has determination. He will work on your body’s strength and agility.”

“Fine. You want me to do something as well. What is it.” That brat! To dare say something to him, the (former) ANBU captain! Oh, he’d pay. He’d feel the pain that Kakashi was feeling from just dealing with him!

“I want you to strengthen her body. Eat healthily. Drink lots of water. Exercise. Give her this head start.” As much as it would help Sakura for her to overcome her own body’s limits and improve of her own accord, she could do that later. She _would_ be doing a similar thing for Naruto. As the Hokage had put it, Sasuke needed to acquire the Will of Fire. Kakashi didn’t care about such things. He believed in teamwork. And teamwork they would get. They would work as if they were in one mind, he would make sure of it.

* * *

Sasuke laid on the ground, panting. He could barely breathe, it felt as if his lungs had been reduced to the size of a pea. That stupid Sakura, making him do all the work all over again. Although, he didn’t think his endurance has ever been this horrendous. Well, except that time when That Man had actually decided to let Sasuke tag along to his training and he nearly died. Right now he could barely believe at how happy he had been to spend time with That Man. He heaved a sigh of relief that he no longer possessed the naiveté from his youth. He looked over at Jon and saw him burning leaves with chakra. Why would he do that? What purpose was there in doing that. Jon looked up and saw him staring… and blushed?

Was Jon gay all along? Did he take advantage of Shisui (then Sasuke) for his own pleasure? Sasuke frowned. How rude. It was making him angry! ‘And what do we do when we’re angry?’ whispered Kagami in his mind. ‘We vent!’ Sasuke eagerly replied. If Jon was doing some kind of weird chakra tricks, it meant he was training! Sasuke would not allow this! What if this was a sneaky attempt at besting him? He needed to catch up! Even if Kakashi was going to make him do it all over again for some sadistic pleasure.

He stood up trying not to show the huge pain he felt from each and every muscle he had in his body. He could feel his legs shaking under him and his arm was very stubbornly stuck to his side, vehemently disagreeable to any moving. Even his chakra seemed completely depleted even though he had no memory of using it. Jon bent to the ground and took another leaf, putting it aflame instantly. He bent down again…

Was that the Fire Release exercise? It must have been! Jon wasn’t even an Uchiha! Why was he so set on having his Clan’s chakra release?! He walked over to a pile of leaves nearby and sat down (collapsed) on it. He took the first leaf and _concentrated._ The leaf stuck to his hand. ‘What the hell?’ Clearly, there had to be some kind of twist to it. Although his father had always said that Chakra Release required pretty big chakra stores… So _maybe_ he was pouring too little chakra into it? He carefully balled down his chakra into a point noting how easy it was for once. What did Kakashi say? That Sakura had alright chakra control?

He poured the tiny ball into the leaf. It started steaming slightly but it _still. wasn’t. burning_. Why would Jon be able to do Fire Release better than a pure-bred Uchiha? He carefully scrapped the rest of the chakra he could reach. The damned leaf started smoldering, emitting a bit of some actual smoke. It wasn’t enough! He focused on the leaf and _pushed_ with all his might. The leaf _finally_ caught on fire. Suck that, Jon! Who was the Uchiha now! He stared at the slight burns on his hand smiling. Now, for another… lea…

As he started falling to the ground he pondered why Jon was so much better than him. Didn’t Sasuke train more? Was he a failure just like Itachi had said?

* * *

Kakashi observed the scene idly from a nearby tree. Naruto had passed out a few meters before the finish line not possessing the same determination that Sasuke had. Sakura had gone back to that stupid exercise. Could she really be that blind? Wasn’t it absolutely obvious how little it was improving her chakra control? How many burned leaves would it take for her to finally realize that? Kakashi could feel the chakra around him as much as any person of his rank should. That exercise wasn’t depleting even the tiniest amount of chakra Naruto’s body possessed. It was the worst exercise for her right now.

‘Alright.’ he decided. ‘I’ll give her ten more minutes. If she’s the “certified genius” that her Academy teacher had written down in her file, she was bound to notice this was getting her nowhere.’ He doubted it to be honest. But having a nice ten minute break never hurt anybody.

Five minutes had passed when Sasuke woke up from his sweet, princess dreams. The kid’s eyes snapped to Sakura in Naruto’s body and narrowed. Was he glaring at her…? ‘Oh!’ Kakashi thought delightedly. ‘He must also see just how pointless this is!’ The child stood up stiffly and hobbled towards a tree. Was he going to practice tree walking? It felt good to not be surrounded by lazy idiots.

Sasuke reached the tree. It was coming!

What? What was he doing? Why was he bending down? (Kakashi decided to ignore Sakura’s ogling with a terrified shudder. The fangirlism seems to have reached a new peak while he wasn’t looking because he was pretty sure that _Rin_ would have never done _that_ when they had been young.) And, oh, Sasuke was now holding a leaf. He seemed to be… Practicing leaf sticking? What in the log? Sasuke held out his hand and Kakashi noted full of exasperation that the leaf was neatly stuck to Sasuke’s hand. What had the kid been expecting? Hadn’t Kakashi told him just this morning that Sakura had pretty good chakra control?

The leaf started steaming. _Oh no._

Kakashi watched in horrified silence as Sasuke _replicated_ the stupidest, most senseless _time-waster_ that he’d ever seen.

Sakura had started to sneak Sasuke worried glances. Did she know that that wasn’t _ever,_ supposed to happen? Did she remember just how easy the exercise was while “wearing” her chakra system?

The leaf stopped steaming. Did Sasuke’s stupidity recede? Was Kakashi going to get back his one non-imbecilic student?

The leaf started emitting smoke. Sakura’s chakra began to worryingly diminish.

The leaf burst into flames just as Sakura’s chakra _completely disappeared._ He took it all back. He had no unimbecillic students. They were all complete and utter _idiots._

* * *

Naruto woke up. He groaned, already hating the thought of opening his eyes. He took it all back! Sasuke _did not_ have it easier. How could he have been so stupid? He was cold. He was hungry. He was _so_ tired. And, everything _hurt_. He hadn’t known before that other people had to actually endure crippling pain everyday after practice. Would it ever go away? What could he do to make it so? Would Sakura also have problems with moving?

“Well, _Sakura_ , I get that you want to get all the practice you want but that doesn’t mean you have to almost kill yourself doing it!” Kakashi’s weird, annoying voice rang through the air. Would he shut up! Naruto was trying to sleep! “Here. If you’re so desperate to expand your chakra capacity just pour chakra into it. If you start feeling faint you need to stop. It won’t help you… much.” Naruto rolled over to his other side angrily.

“Kakashi-sensei!” Naruto wanted to throttle that bint! Her voice was even worse! “That’s a toy for small children!” A pause. He breathed a sigh of relief at the perfect opportunity to go to sleep.

“It’s better than pouring all your chakra into a leaf.” Another pause. Naruto hadn’t been aware of his sensei’s fondness for marking his sentences. Those pauses gave him so much false hope! “Ah, Naruto!” Naruto flinched but decided to ignore Kakashi. (something he was sure he was going to regret doing later) “I think that you might be aware but the leaf sticking exercise is definitely _not_ meant for you and your huge reserves.” Pause. “You might enjoy our tomorrow’s exercise! I’m sure you’ll get a looot of experience in the coming days!” Pause. “Got to go! Tell Sasuke, that he might have been more believable in his sleep if his breathing pattern wasn’t completely wonky!”

Wait a minute! _He_ was Sasuke!

He could hear steps getting farther away. They were very grating. “Hey, Sasuke, are you alright?!” the annoying girl screeched at him. He. was. done.

He opened his eyes. Oh, he was at the hospital, figure that! He got up from the floor beside Sakura’s bed, opened the window and _jumped._


	2. Chapter 2

When Naruto got back home he immediately went to the bedroom, gleefully noting that not having to shovel garbage of the bed before laying on was really nice and saved time. He smirked at seeing the bastard’s plushy. Who in their right mind would use such childish things? And the bastard thought he was so great, too. Pathetic. He closed his eyes, trying to ignore the complete quiet around him. Not having anybody walk by the window was very weird. Why was it so quiet anyway? Where were the people?

He sighed in annoyance. He had been so sleepy back at the hospital, why was he wide awake now?

And what would it mean if he was the only one who changed? Sakura seemed to go on as usual, same as his body. But he wasn’t t _here!_ So how could it? Was he asleep? How could he wake up? Could he go to sleep while he was sleeping? If not, would he just lay waiting the whole night? That would suck a lot. And why did the bastard’s body still hurt? His limbs were pulsing in a very weird way. Why had they never done something of the sort in his own body? And why was his charaga so wonky? It had never made him fly like that!

It was so weird. He could feel it all the time now, even when he wasn’t dying! He flexed his legs, trying to make the weird tingling go away. They felt so heavy! Oh, when would he be able to fall asleep? This was getting annoying! The light that fell on his eyes through the window was very annoying as well. _Everything_ was annoying right now. His arm still hurt as well! He flexed it and hissed in pain. He flexed his legs again. What was their deal?

* * *

She headed to Naruto’s apartment. Fortunately, she remembered where it was so she’d be able to find it without any problems! She moved through the village quickly, hoping to get everything she’d planned done quickly. Naruto had that jutsu, didn’t he? The weird one with the made up signs. Something like an x? It would be super useful right now, she had so much to do! She tried forming the sign hesitantly. She hadn’t really paid enough attention to the idiot to know what the signs looked like…

But would they really matter? Maybe if she just poured enough chakra? She tried balling up the chakra as she usually did, as Iruka-sensei had always advised them to do. It didn’t work _at all._ How was she supposed to remember the amount needed then? How would she be able to estimate what and how to use? Naruto’s body sucked. (Although the complete lack of pain was quite nice, she had to admit. Normally she’d be unable to move after so much running.)

She pondered the matter for a second. She obviously could not use chakra control as the idiot had none. How much chakra would be too much? She gathered as much as she’d had used to burn the leaf shakily (it just didn’t want to surrender to her will). Nothing. She doubled the amount. No change whatsoever. She walked into a street lamp painfully, gaining what felt like a large bruise on her forehead. The chakra dispersed, making her huff angrily.

She gathered the chakra slowly, waiting for something, anything. Nothing happened.

Just how much chakra did that stupid technique use? She could honestly say she had never used that much chakra _combined_ for all her jutsus _ever._ And it didn’t even work! She threw up her arms in frustration. To hell with this. She submerged herself further into the idiot’s chakra system and gathered as much chakra as she was able, which was unsurprisingly difficult.

She threw it out to the rest of the gathered chakra.

Immediately, there was a huge burst of smoke as the chakra disappeared and a clone appeared. She swayed. That was _a lot_ of chakra to use on just one technique! She regained her footing quickly and shot a look at the clone. It looked like Naruto, the disgusting, dirty jumpsuit and all. “Go do the groceries.” She told it. Did her money double as well? The clothes that she’d had on were certainly there…

She shrugged. She didn’t really care if Naruto was going to be accused of stealing, it was not her problem at all. She blinked and realized she was standing near the shopping district. It was time to buy a believable enough set of clothes. Would she have to take orange ones? She frowned. Such a waste of money! Maybe she’d add some white to the orange? Not only would they work together splendidly, it would mean less cursed orange! She was so resourceful!

* * *

Kakashi stared despondently at one of the fiends. How she had been called smart at the Academy was beyond him. He jabbed at her with his chakra, not even trying to be subtle as he made her create a shadow clone. He was feeling quite sorry for himself. Maybe he should off them all? Three genin were completely useless to the village either way… Would anybody even notice? Two orphans and a civilian-born were as close to unprotected as it came to it. Nobody would be surprised! Could they even blame him? Was this how his village paid him back for his years of faithful service?

It wasn’t as if they could do anything to him, anyway! He was one of the top dogs here in Konoha. He strongly doubted anybody high up cared that much about three useless brats. Hell, wouldn’t some of them not thank him? He would be taking a huge burden off of everybody’s shoulders!

The little chick went shopping, of course, priorities set as they were. Maybe he’d take them out on an assassination mission? As they were in the peace times, the green genin wouldn’t taste any battle until they were either unlucky chuunin, or taken into ANBU. Which generated another idea! He should make them skilled enough for ANBU, in all the areas that that career choice required and then they’d be taken off his hands _entirely._ His hope surged. How could he beat some sense into them, though?

Motivation was important when it came to training. If they didn’t want to do it, they wouldn’t. They’d half-ass it and be proud of it. Right now there was only one way of instant motivation he could see. Surely some of them wouldn’t like it but what did he care? He could feel his sadistic nature purr in pleasure at his plans. He quickly stamped it down. It wouldn’t do to scare them off. Then, new even more green genin would be assigned to his team. He would allow himself only a tiny bit of sadism. After all, he was a professional.

* * *

Sasuke twinned a lock of pink hair around his finger, staring at it in fascination. As much as Sakura’s body sucked physically, he had to admit, the hair made up for it a bit. Father hadn’t been very nice to him, even he had to admit that. Sasuke still shuddered when he saw red, the single best color in existence according to his father. He could still remember the long-winded lectures about what an Uchiha should do and what they shouldn’t ever even attempt to think about. The color of the Uchiha patriarch’s child's clothes mattered very much to him (That Man was away all the time so he didn’t hear any of those, cheating scum that he was). It had been made very clear that should anybody wear something that was not either black, white or red, the perpetrator would be forced to repent.

Sasuke conceded that sometimes he didn’t miss his parents much at all. He was sure he’d always hate kneeling (which was a slight problem, considering that the village was ran in a strictly hierarchic manner - while he wouldn’t have to be too differential to Kakashi, who was only his teacher, but the staff manning the Hokage tower was different altogether - it would be expected of him to bow to most of the higher-ups (which was already annoying), as well as a full-on dramatic kneeling position that was supposed to show his respect for the Hokage). Maybe the idiot was onto something when he said he wanted be the Hokage?

Back to the topic at hand (ha!), pink had always been seen as a very girly color. As such, his father seemed to have thought it obvious that Sasuke would never dare so much as look at it. He was right, pretty much, but lately Sasuke had been feeling very rebellious. The fact that he now had pink hair was like a sign from the above, encouraging him to have his way. It was a nice enough color, he supposed.

Just as he’d been doing earlier, he studiously avoided looking at the ugly dress, still shivering slightly, aware of the Redness. He could hear Kagami’s cackling in his head. Why were all the voices there so rude? He pulled slightly at his hair trying to pull his thoughts away from the horror that was Red. His hair was already a bit dirty, which was no surprise, really. That Man had always worn his hair in a lazy bun and Sasuke had seen one of his aunt’s complex hairstyle that was at the same time beautiful, practical, and slightly intimidating.

He would never as long as he was sane and alive do anything that made him in any way resemble That Man. But maybe a plait? It would keep his hair together _and_ wouldn’t compromise his morals…

Frowning deeply, he tried to remember how all the annoying harpies did this at the Academy. He was sure they separated their hair into a few chunks… Three, was it? Now, how to tangle them together? He hadn’t a clue. He didn’t pay that much attention. He tried to do whatever. With practice, he was sure to improve. Five seconds later, with his fingers tangled hopelessly into a pink knot he regretted his frivolous optimism. He would not repeat this pathetic attempt ever again. First, he needed information, the theory. Once he had it, the rest would come as well, just as when learning a new technique.

He stared at the hospital ceiling determinedly, waiting for a nurse to finally let him go home.

* * *

He woke up instantly.

He could tell that _something_ was off.

He could not tell _what_.

He stood up from the bastard’s bed.

The body (his body?) moved mechanically towards the bedroom door.

The steps were rhythmical. Steady. Unhurried.

It walked to a door he hadn’t opened yet.

It opened the door.

There was a garden.

It was green. Vibrant.

Flowers were in bloom.

It was beautiful.

It surrounded a bare square in the middle.

It walked the path to the square.

It began to form various taijutsu forms.

The legs, arms… _everything_ still hurt a lot after the day before

but now it hurt more

The body trained.

* * *

They finally let him go when the sun was setting. The library would probably be open for a while yet. He set his sights to it, still scowling slightly after an insufferable interaction with the nurse. At least she gave back the toy from Kakashi. Sasuke knew the stupid teacher was only trying to rouse his temper but he would not give in. He eyed the light-green hue with annoyance. He’d possessed a similar toy to this one while he’d been a child. How useless could Sakura even be? He’d had more chakra than her when he was _three._

He played with his hair with his other hand. The one and only thing that he could bear on her body.

He could finally see the library! His pace quickened slightly in anticipation.

As he entered, he registered the room with all his senses. He could hear many people inside. Some of them he could even hear move - they must have been civilian. His hearing wasn’t too well honed. He could feel the smell of books everywhere, quite familiar by now. He could feel the lack of air circulation in the room, the stuffy air choking him for a split second. He could see people sitting next to the multiple desks strewn around the room. His favorite seat - a comfortable chair hidden by a huge bookcase with books about some obscure subject that nobody cared about - was blessedly clear of people.

He glared at the floor in front of, him silently wondering how on earth he’d find a book on _hair_ of all things. He was used to knowing perfectly well where the things that interested him where. Admitting to one’s lack of knowledge was a weakness. Weakness should never be shown for others to see. It was late, getting later by the minute. He had parents now - a fraudulent pair but a living one. Could he afford to waste time here? Would it be worth it just to avoid looking weak in front of a nobody?

No and no.

He stole himself and walked over to an intimidating librarian. She stared at him as he was coming over. Was she glaring at him? Was he being too loud? Encroaching on her time and space? She was talking! He tried to slow down his breathing that had turned erratic the moment he had decided to approach her. She was staring again! What did she say? How could he ask her? How? “Hair.” His voice (high, so high, not his, her) was so loud in such a quiet place! What was he doing? He should have had searched for it himself! Who cared for Sakura’s parents anyway? He had time! He could have done it! But no! “Where is?” he squeaked pathetically, feeling a staggering amount of disdain for himself. Was this how an Uchiha acted?

She was walking away from him! Was he supposed to follow her? Did she say anything? What if she’d decided to ignore him and was doing something different than showing him the aisle he’d asked about? He started walking anxiously, waiting for her to start scolding him. For each second he waited, he could feel the tension in him increase, but he did his best not to show it. He would not show such weakness! Not again!

She had stopped walking and was staring at him again. He noticed he wasn’t moving either. How long had they been standing exactly? He felt stupid. He nodded to the woman, deciding she must have been waiting for him to acknowledge her help. She left. He looked at the books around him. What if… No! He was alone now! Alone meant fine. He walked over to one of the books displayed next to him. Something about hair-care. He searched for a book on hairstyles, finding it shortly. That was good. He sat down on the floor, not wanting to walk around at the moment. There, in the second chapter he could see a description of a basic braid.

It looked quite simple. He already knew it would not be that in the least. He _would_ keep his long hair. As much as he couldn’t care less about his hairstyle while he still was himself, he did care now. He wasn’t as idiotic as Sakura however as to keep it unbound. He glared at the page and started dividing his hair into three even parts.

* * *

Kakashi hummed from behind his book. His experiment was proving to be quite the great idea! Granted, he had to help the idea greaten so to say by exacerbating any positive feelings Sasuke had for his new hair, pressuring him into trying to braid it, stopping him five times from shearing it off due to frustration…

Who’d knew it would take so little to make Sasuke get a new hobby? He was quite glad now that he knew all those techniques concerning hair. Knowing so many jutsu had never been that helpful before! He was pretty sure nobody else knew even a half of them (or more than one or two) so if he played it right, he could make Sasuke that much more desperate to stay in Konoha! Maybe he’d be able to bribe Sakura as well? Could Naruto be interested?

He stared at his dear Aki pensively. Didn’t Naruto criticize Sasuke’s hairstyle extensively? Maybe that would be a good point to start?

* * *

Sakura was feeling quite accomplished. Not only did she finish shopping for an appropriate outfit in merely two hours, the groceries had already been finished as well! She even remembered placing them onto all the places she deemed right in the kitchen (as it had been completely empty) which on it’s own wouldn’t be remarkable at all if she actually did do it. Which she hadn’t; her clone did. It was a very weird feeling to have - she didn’t think the clone was her exactly.

She frowned as she remembered the state the apartment was in at the moment. How much time would it take her to clean up that monstrosity? Maybe it’d be easier to simply move elsewhere? But she didn’t have the money necessary to do that (Naruto didn’t, she guessed). She entered the house with trepidation. Apparently it was never closed. _Why?_ How was she supposed to feel safe there? Anybody could get there, even somebody civilian! (She apologized to her parents quietly but it was the truth.) Civilians were more or less useless.

What if somebody was waiting for her inside? An enemy ninja? Would she be able to protect herself with no chakra? - no, surely, she wouldn't.

She suddenly remembered that there was a huge rubbish container under one of the windows. She looked out and found it open. “ _Lucky!”,_ she thought and started gathering an armful of garbage from the floor.  She was just about finished completing the first armful when she remembered that she could use a clone! Then she’d be done twice as fast! She let go of the trash to form the handsigns.

It was her second time making a clone so she more or less knew what to expect and didn’t even stagger at the huge chakra-loss. But wouldn’t it be even quicker if she made more clones? She focused again, sending even more chakra out. This time she did sway a bit. She had the weirdest urge to take a nap for a second but it went away so quickly she didn’t act on it.

She told the clones telepathically to clean the apartment with her and started gathering the trash from the floor, thinking cheerily to herself about the sheer fun that would be throttling Naruto. He made the mess and now she was _cleaning after him._ Who was she, his mother? She hated it very much but the sole possibility of not having to trudge through trash as well as smell it gave her the motivational kick that was needed. Who knew how long she’d stay in this horrible situation?

The worst thing, she thought bitterly, was the weird not-fitting parts. She was a girl, damn it! She didn’t want… that.

The chakra control sucked as well. The only thing she was any good at! And now she lost it completely! How was she even supposed to be a ninja if she couldn’t do anything? She knew for a fact that Naruto’s taijutsu sucked as well. Although he had a lot of chakra. The only plus of the situation… Although the lack of tiredness was nice as well… And the recovery time…

So maybe her situation wasn’t _the worst_. So what? It still sucked majorly.

She threw the trash petulantly and noted in surprise that the room’s floor could already be seen. The cleaning was going much faster than she would have thought it would! She moved to the kitchen to start clearing the garbage from there. She already had a small inkling of what they’d all do next; vacuuming!

* * *

Dear Log, were these children annoying! The pink monstrum was starting to wear him down. He had to spell _everything_ out for her! He even opened the container for her. Fortunately, he had already scouted the premises, so he knew which cleaning necessities were where.

It was starting to get scary how little the girl questioned her thoughts. She was supposed to be aware about genjutsu. There was no way the top scholar in the year didn’t hear about a major shinobi branch. She should also know what genjutsu were able to do, even if she didn’t have to be able to cast one successfully. So _why_ did she plainly not care or notice when he steered her towards the never-used-before five-year-old vacuum cleaner, that had been stored in a closet that she’d had never opened in her life?

Was she a kunoichi or a civilian?

* * *

Sakura arrived at their training ground feeling half-dead. She hadn’t slept all night in her frenzy to clean up. She must have been so motivated! As usual, she was the first one to arrive, having felt the extreme need to be on time. Fortunately, she managed to eat at a quarter to three when her cleaning spree hit a bit of a wall, so she wasn’t feeling too hungry. She was very surprised just how much it took to satiate Naruto’s hunger; her own body took much less to be sated.

She glumly picked up a leaf and started charging it with chakra half-heartedly. Kakashi-sensei had told her it wouldn’t do much but at least it would do _something!_ She felt so bad without her chakra, she felt as if she wasn’t whole anymore. If he was so smart he could have at least given her something to train with if he’d gotten something for her body, who, at this point she was beginning to suspect was one of the idiots themselves! The blatant favoritism was showing and she didn’t like it.

The leaf burned down. Maybe she should try with something bigger? She took a stick. Would that help? Or would she burn that as well? She started pouring some chakra into it. It warmed up dangerously but also seemed to have stuck to her hand to slightest bit. Great! She flipped her hand around hoping to see the stick stick. No such luck.

There was something… Coming closer. But what could it be? She frowned at the ground lightly. It would be near her in just a moment… She stood up shakily, getting ready to protect herself from the unknown. It didn’t seem too big… Maybe a squirrel? Would she get a snack? That would be nice!

The trees were starting to get really loud! Something that didn’t pay any attention to making noise was coming! Wouldn’t a squirrel try to avoid making sound? The prey wouldn’t want to be eaten, would it? Maybe it was a predator? But wouldn’t it scare of its’ prey that way?

The rustle of leaves was growing closer! It would come in five seconds! Three! She reached for a kunai shakily, knowing she wasn’t any good at using it. That was Sasuke’s specialty!

As if summoned, Sasuke showed himself from between the trees. It couldn’t have been _him_ making so much noise, could it? He was such a great and competent ninja, he would never make it possible for _her_ to hear him! Right? She moved to take her seat again, noting in surprise that her kunai was still in her hand. Did Sasuke really feel small like a squirrel? What would that make her, a butterfly? She sighed and started searching for her stick.

Before she could find it however, her body came to the clearing. She hadn’t even felt her! So Sakura was worse than a butterfly, which was not very surprising at all. She peeked at her body, expecting to see herself as if she were looking in a mirror, which was still weird! But! She… What? What had happened? Why did her body _do that to itself?_ Her hair, which should have been nice and combed, was looking as if it had a close meeting with an angry bat. It was also tangled into some kind of a rod. _Why?,_ she sobbed in her mind, closing her eyes and trying to erase her memory. Who would even do that to her hair? Did they hate her? Why were they spitting on her work of years? It wasn’t easy to keep one’s hair nice and pretty! Hell, Naruto’s hair felt as if he had gelled it a few years ago and had forgot to wash it off. Like a dog’s pelt!

She sobbed, covering her eyes. Why, oh why did this have to happen? Now she’d have to start her hair treatment all over again when she had finally gone back to her own body! Nobody else had to go through her pain! It was so unfair! _Life_ was so unfair!

* * *

What Sasuke had been expecting from his teammates for his failed try at making a braid was maybe some teasing or jeers, if they felt nice, maybe only some laughter (although he knew fully well that people were neither nice or kind, so that was improbable). Basically, business as always. What he was _not_ in any way, shape or form expecting was for _Naruto_ of all people to start hysterically crying when he saw him. Not happy crying, oh _no!_ There was no laughter to be found anywhere. It was like when That Man’s hamster had died when Sasuke’d been six, and That Man _frowned._ (read: a huge deal)

He could see Sasuke-body give Naruto-body a wide berth, the fear making his eyes cartoonishly big and goggling at the huge tears running down the blond’s face. Sasuke cautiously, trying to appear calm and unruffled, walked away as quickly as he could to a nearby log and sat behind it, wishing he knew some earth jutsu, so he could bury himself alive. He already knew he wouldn’t be able to look at Jon for a while, it would be too awkward.

Could he change teams, perhaps? The Hokage would surely humor an Uchiha! The Last Uchiha, at that! There were so many teams in Konoha! Surely some of them needed another ninja! Oh, what would have Father thought of him if he’d seen that scene! (But he wouldn’t! Because he was dead!) Which was true enough, Sasuke could agree with Kagami this time. Hopefully reincarnation existed, Father would be busy harassing somebody else and would have no time to witness Sasuke’s life. After all, Father would never agree to only spectate! It would have been impossible! If his Father could see this, he would have surely reacted in some way!

A small shadow went through the training ground, heading towards him. He stared at it wide-eyed. “Father?”, he whispered, absolutely terrified. In a second, between one tremor and another, he could feel _something_ on his face. His eyes hurt as the thing attacked his eyes. “N-no!”, he hissed faintly. Father had… Father!

He fainted, a high screech of grief cutting through the air in the background.

* * *

He finally deigned to show his face to the brats it was a bit after 8 - only two hours after the meeting time. He was so generous! How would they throw it in his face today? It was time to find out. He walked over to them casually (which translated to him being completely soundless, scentless, and chakraless as he couldn’t be bothered to emit additional sounds). What he saw… was unusual. But fine! It was fine. He was a shinobi and shinobi could spin everything so that they won in the end. And he was the best shinobi!

Which was exactly why it wouldn’t be that challenging for him to use somehow the fact that Sasuke was out cold, bird feces on his face; Sakura was swinging back and forth in a fetal position, a vacant look on her face and Naruto was smiling overly cheerfully at the tree in front of him, while looking on the verge of a breakdown himself. Kakashi had never seen Sasuke’s body smile and right now he was glad for it.

How? How did they manage to do all of this while he wasn’t looking? He had only gone away from Naruto’s apartment three hours ago! Did they require a constant babysitter? Would it help? It’s not like he couldn’t do it… He had the funds. He wasn’t using them in any way. Why not? But who could he employ? He hadn’t seen so much chaos in a very long time and he was only a week into this job! Tenzo? He would probably be able to help… Although the Hokage had forcefully banned him from taking over too much of Tenzo’s time after that one time with Guy… Maybe a pair of chuunin for each one of the terrors? Something to look into.

He went over to Naruto, deeming him the easiest to deal with at the moment. “Hey! Naruto!” he snapped, not particularly caring if the others heard him call him that way. It was time for them to have figured it out. He _had_ told them to look underneath the underneath and that was a huge hint! The fact that he thought of switching came later notwithstanding. The little idiot didn’t seem to even register his presence near him. He waved a hand in front of the child’s face. Nothing. The eyes were looking through it at the tree still.

He would do it the forceful way, then. He went through the handsigns for a modest waterfall and let it out on the boy’s head. A screech. Good! Time for the warm-up.

“Start running around the village. Complete this round in less than an hour or else.” he said threateningly knowing fully well it would be enough to motivate it. The child.

Time for Sakura.

* * *

She was close, she knew it! She canceled the clone that was working alongside her. It didn’t help too much as their tries were very similar to each other, but it was still more practice time! She processed the additional hour of the exercise through, made the clone again and headed for the tree. She’d be damned if she did it after the idiots!

And all the training she was getting that was falling forcefully from great heights would surely prove useful soon.

* * *

Sasuke sweated as he tried to gather enough chakra to complete the exercise. He just _knew_ he would have completed it by this time were he in his own body! Instead he got to watch his stupid teammates mostly from the ground as he wasn’t able to stick himself to the damned tree consistently enough. He frowned in focus as he grabbed onto all of the chakra. His chakra now.

And it still didn’t help! He hit the tree with his fist, glaring at it forcefully. Why was Sakura so useless? The times he did succeed for a few seconds, he nearly keeled over from the pain in his shins. It probably was a bad idea to start going vertical with exactly zero calf muscles. Kakashi had gone of somewhere, as well as clearly not caring for his (quite obvious) plight. He clearly wouldn’t get anything done at this rate. It was pretty clear that those chakra stores were worse than it should have been possible. He was going to find out how to expand them quickly and he’d complete the exercise first even if it killed him!

And if nobody wanted to tell him how to do it, he could obviously get the answer from the library; the only useful recourse!

* * *

Naruto narrowly held himself back from bashing his head into the tree. It wasn’t working! The chakra was so weird and it felt completely wrong to him! Sure, so far he’d managed to get the furthest, but he could see his body improving much faster than him! How did it do it? And Sakura seemed to be so chill about the exercise, she simply left! Did she think it was so easy it didn’t warrant her attention? Who knew what she’d do, maybe go to the hot springs and relax! And here Naruto was, struggling. He gathered some chakra in his legs again and tried again. He could actually feel himself improve a bit which had certainly never happened so quick before in his life. It had only been an eternity since the exercise started! He fell.

He tried again. And he could already feel his calves cramp like hell! He had always thought that the bastard trained a lot but that was quickly proving to be false. He fell.

He tried again. This time he actually managed to get to the half-point! And he was the first one to do it! He fell.

He tried again. He was twenty meters in when he heard a loud screeched “Shannaro!” in his voice. He slipped. As he was falling, he looked over and saw a lot of Naruto-clones. They all started screaming at once, generating a deafening cacophony that made him really glad to have less sensitive ears in this body than he had as Naruto. He watched silently as they all except for one ran at a tree at once, some of them falling over and dispelling in seconds. They were all replaced in even less.

Clearly his body was stepping up its’ game. He tried again. What else could he do?

* * *

Sasuke carried all the packages he had acquired in the last ten minutes with difficulty. Those arms were like useless boiled noodles. They already hurt like they were going to fall off and he had a good five minutes to march yet! He quickened his pace, wishing that Sakura hadn’t committed all those awful crimes on her metabolism. How could she have taught her body to not expect anything to eat? He was never hungry! Or yes, he was, but it was such a mild feeling! It came at the weirdest of times.

The body was completely useless at processing stuff. He already could predict the weight gain that would come as a result of his normal eating habits - which was not normal at all! (heh) Sakura was a ninja! She was supposed to move a lot! The act of normalizing her body to the life of a ninja would fall onto Sasuke of course. He’d get all the pain. He couldn’t wait.

The books he had consulted at the library also very clearly said that there was a direct proportion between the amount of food eaten and chakra capacity. Which meant that she had been self-sabotaging all that time! And now she was sabotaging him! After the scene that morning he was beginning to feel reasonably sure that Sakura was inhabiting Naruto’s body, after all nobody else would be that vane and vapid. Naruto at least had better priorities - training over anything else. The fact that he sucked at it was another matter entirely. Although now, when he seemed to have taken over Sasuke’s own body it was much more important for him to know what he was doing.

The book had also said to remember to ration it properly, but who had the time for that? He hadn’t, certainly. He wanted the bigger stores, now. He was not a baby! The book had also agreed with Kakashi about the fact that nearly exhausting one’s supply also helped, as well as constant use. It also mentioned that meditation helped _a lot._ He had been ticking of two of those methods ever since he had left the hospital. He could, in the sanctity of his mind admit, that he felt pretty shaky and on the verge of puking. He’d obviously never verbalize that, since he wasn’t a baby. Only babies and idiots complained. He wasn’t an idiot either.

He placed all his purchases on the ground in a nice shade and went over to his tree. He heedfully ignored the looks from the annoyances and took out a kunai. It was a bit awkward because he had to juggle it with the chakra-training ball but he managed. He placed a foot on the tree trunk and poured some chakra into it. As always in this body, he had no problems with making the chakra submit to him. Now, he only needed to do all the work and actually make that fact worthwhile.

The foot stuck at a frankly worrying high amount of chakra. If he had a puddle of it altogether (when in his own body he had had a pond), that one step took out a bucket out of it. He had, _maybe_ ten buckets, probably less. Which was ridiculous. Ten steps? He could take them out now and show of how he managed to walk five meters up, or… Or he could try and make it cost less. From those two options, the choice was ridiculously easy.

But how could he do that? What if he made his chakra denser? Would that help him cheat around the puddle problem? But that seemed like a more long-term solution, not usable right now. Maybe if he made it more sticky somehow? Surely he’d need less chakra if he could do that. And if it was possible to make chakra change into fire, then surely glue would work just as well? But that didn’t seem right… That would be some type of a Bloodline Trait, which this useless body most definitely didn’t possess. What, then?

He took his foot off the tree and sat at its’ base, considering his further approach. He could try getting a feel of the chakra and replicate it using less chakra, probably… maybe. It was interesting that it took noticeably less chakra to maintain the sticking effect. He could totally stand still, which ruled out every thing that he could think of bar gluing oneself. He wondered how long he’d be able to hold the technique at the moment.

He could probably try to remember how much chakra it took him to remain glued and replicate it to start the process. Of course, it would work only if it didn’t simply take more energy to start the jutsu. Although, he was sure he’d be able to cut down at least a bit - he was currently using way too much. All that was left was to actually try. He (very reluctantly) left the ball next to the rest of the things to be able to focus on the exercise completely and walked over to the tree.

He searched for a branch that was high enough for him to have some time to flip while falling, while also being low enough for him to be able to safely land and started climbing the Academy-way. He could hear a decidedly Naruto-esque crowing coming from his body that definitely worked towards confirming his theory. It didn’t matter at the moment. He carefully sat down on the huge branch, longer than his height and thicker than his thighs. Although Sakura’s thighs were like thin sticks so it didn’t mean much of anything at all.

He wondered how he was even going to do this… How was he supposed to get on the branch? Could he make his feet slide in a controlled manner? He tried to slide it on top of the branch trepidatiously and found it didn’t really require much deliberation at all. He stuck his other foot to the branch and went for it. He slid to the bottom much less seamlessly but still managed to avoid falling off. Working thesis: he had to see the uneven terrain to navigate it well.

He was finally in position! Multitasking time! He started counting down the seconds he managed to remain stuck while at the same time trying to really get a feel of his chakra leaving - its’ speed, weight, amount.

* * *

She could see Sakura-body not even attempt to do the exercise even after going away for an hour or so. She was beginning to feel a bit disheartened, as well as disappointed. She had her suspicions about the situation and if she were correct, it was Sasuke currently not doing anything. After almost ruining her hair, he wasn’t doing much at all. She would have normally been unable to believe that if not for the fact that Sasuke’s body had _clearly_ been taken over by Naruto.

She saw Sasuke finally move. He seemed to be ignoring her which was not out of the ordinary. He walked over to the tree and operated her body much more gracefully than she had ever been able to move. It was pretty unfair. She still sometimes toppled over randomly in Naruto’s body. Sasuke climbed the tree, pulling himself up on the branch, which had always seemed impossible to her when she had tried.

He wasn’t trying to complete the exercise, was he? Standing stock still down a branch seemed to be pretty far off from the climbing ( _moving_ ) they were supposed to do. _But why would he do that?,_ she questioned herself. He was currently in her body! She knew her body! She would be able to get the exercise pretty damn easily if she still had the chakra control she had. Instead, she was in Naruto’s body. He had way too much chakra! It was getting really annoying!

All the clones, through whom she had experienced it first-hand, all those hours of practice (she and the idiot had been going at it for the past five hours, which multiplied by twenty when all her clones were taken into consideration) and she still hadn’t gotten far. She was still getting blasted off at around fifty meters, which was just a bit over the half-mark. Why were Konohan trees so enormous? She had heard that other countries had much smaller ones, couldn’t they have learnt it there? It would have been _so much easier!_

She made some of her clones stand without moving on the tree and noted the increased difficulty she was experiencing. Most of her clones blasted of at unexpected intervals. When all the memories cleared up a bit, her headache had increased substantially. It seemed as if it took less chakra to stand still. So, why was Sasuke doing it? But wait, she had a much smaller capacity in her own body! But what could that give him? She frowned, massaging her temples. She had no idea.

It didn’t matter too much, though, did it? What mattered the most was the fact that she had been going at the tree completely stupidly for the past hours. She could wallow, surely, but she needed to think of a better way to get it! She was the intelligent one, Mizuki-sensei had always said so!

But what could she even do? This body had so much chakra, she wasn’t used to handling it! But didn’t the Shadow Clone take a whole lot of chakra? It totally did! So she could probably get it down much sooner if she just made more clones. It would also translate to more experience. She had thought of it earlier, somewhat. She had stopped at twenty, but what if something else was the magical number?

She couldn’t forget the huge headache she had after processing so much information in so little time. If she made more of them, it would surely worsen. Did she want to win so badly? - yes. of course! chakra control was _hers._ it didn’t matter if she weren’t in her own body.

She breathed in deeply as she folded her hands into the familiar sign. She poured a gratuitous helping of chakra and five more clones appeared at the clearing. She waited for the output - one of the clones popping - and decided that the change was null. She made ten more (she was sweating quite profusely by now, but that was fine! she didn’t need to be a lady in Naruto’s body, so sweat was okay). She frowned as the world around her blurred a bit for a second. A clone popped, making her groan in pain, but she was still able to note that much more clones would be needed if she wanted to get it.

She lied down in the grass, making the sign, gathering as much chakra as she could - much more than she had been able to gather the day before. The thought of being barely capable of producing a single clone seemed hilarious right now. (not really) She released the jutsu. Noted the hordes of clones running of towards the trees. Closed her eyes, but it didn’t really help. Each time somebody popped, the memories that were sent to her had the bright visuals attached. She pondered the option of having her clones blindfold themselves but ultimately decided the death rate would go up too much for it to pay off.

The huge numbers in front of her were doing much better than the twenty clones had. She felt scatter-brained and everything hurt and it didn’t seem to actually help all that much and would it be enough for her to win this and. Another wave of pain, sending _so much_ and it seemed like this clone somehow managed to survive for over two hours, which was enough for him to make something of a technique, which was inundating her head right now, making it hurt hurt hurt.

But she couldn’t stop. Chakra was hers. Control.

She _would win._

She saw a clone manage to get just ten meters too low to beat the challenge and a clone that collapsed on the ground at once. The intertwined imagery made her want to puke; ground slowly coming closer, running up a tree, the sky is everywhere (light light light), grass softens the impact, bark irritates her skin as she flails, a root makes her collapse, she is sent from the tree flying because of a sudden huge influx of chakra, she brains herself on the forest-floor, she falls from seventy meters,

She moaned in pain and created two clones, trying desperately to ignore the still-flashing images. Another clone bursts adding running running running running, before being pushed out of the way by another Sakura, falling forty meters because of Sakura, Sakura killed Sakura, Sakura had probably been annoyed, Sakura was scared, Sakura killed herself, _why_ , just go to another tree, Sakura wanted

A clone buried her in a close observation of Sakuras, running Sakuras, walking Sakuras, falling Sakuras, Sakura reaching high high, blasting off Sakura, the feel of bark scraping her skin, Sakura hitting a tree, bark exploding under her feet, Sakura poofing, Sakura feeling the bark spraying onto her skin, pain, pain poof, Sakura running high high, Sakura

Sakura made the clone.

Three clones died at the same time Others lost control Explosions everywhere The tree explodes More death

How Many That? She made clones. More clones. Clones Clones Clones.

running running running more running higher and higher tree shakes lose control stumble fall onto sakura

running running blast

running running death running running bark pierces her skin running

running high running tree running running so close running more chakra too much chakra blast

running so high so high could stop soon running getting speared by the tip of the tree

running running

running

death Sakura falling on Sakura Sakura pushing off Sakura to survive Sakura being hit by falling Sakura getting pushed off Sakura

She made clones.

* * *

Kakashi hummed cheerfully from his perch on his tree. Everything was coming along nicely. He could see the minion’s frustration at not being able to do something so simple. At least for once they were being reasonable. Although, to be completely honest he couldn’t remember that much competitive spirit while he had been on his genin team.

He had to admit, he’d been worried when Sasuke had left. Fortunately the child had gone back not long after bearing food. Kakashi himself wasn’t really a fan of Akame’s Teriyaki Beef but oh well, no minion could be perfect. The boy was still using the ball, making it illuminate in a nice shade of fern, already having bested the five-year-old mean and going for the six-and-a-half-year-old one. A pretty good record for having the ball for twenty hours or so. Was that why he looked so sleep deprived? Now that he thought about it, Sasuke’s problem with ascending the tree could very much be connected to that as well… If the brat had been pumping the ball non-stop for the past day it would be no wonder if he had too little chakra.

Naruto, predictably was currently attempting his  one hundred and eighty-fifth run up the tree, each one the same as the last one, hardly surprising to be completely honest. While the other two’s chakra systems had changed completely, he experienced almost no variation. Sasuke and Sakura were currently experiencing something of a sink or swim thing. If they could best their new bodies’ weaknesses, they would win. If they couldn’t on the other hand they would lose so pathetically, Kakashi would surely laugh himself silly.

Sakura, much like Naruto, was also doing the same thing the whole time, disappointing him greatly. Sure, her clones made different, varying in style and speed attempts but it was nothing much. She had also made only twenty clones, which wouldn’t help too much, frankly. She would need at the least fifty clones to get it today. Of course, the less clones she made, the harder and more alien it would be to her - Naruto had more than a thousand times more chakra and seemed to experience constant high-paces chakra capasity growth. Something Kakashi blamed the Kyuubi for. Add in the fact that every time a clone of Sakura’s popped, others barely managed to survive, well.

Sasuke seemed to have gotten an actual idea, the foreman of the group. Good for him. Kakashi wasn’t entirely sure what hanging upside down would give him exactly but surely it would be good for something. He made a note to take Sasuke off after ten minutes had gone by. It wouldn’t do for the only intelligent student to kill himself off that fast.

At least Sakura was now doing something, even if it was copying Sasuke, which… He sighed. It definitely wouldn’t help but whatever. She couldn’t seem to hold standing still _at all._ He would have to do something about that. Some additional training would surely help - a day more so as to iron out all the problems, it was the one most important technique for a konohan shinobi to have that he was talking about. _Quite a long time,_ he sulked. Why couldn’t his team keep up?

Although Sakura seemed to have taken something out of the wholly useless venture. And she actually made more clones! Great! He quickly counted the clones down. Sixty-one clones. A bit over the top, but okay still. Maybe it would still help a bit more than fifty, although it would definitely hurt her much more. Now: for the choice. He was sadly unable to put her under a genjutsu right now without making her burst, so that was out. He could either tell her, make all the hiding null, make them feel like he was a guardian angel, who’d lovingly take all the questions, as the ANBU kittens had always done… Or, she could just learn by herself through experience. He wasn’t entirely sure she would listen to him anyway, so…

Six minutes had already gone by for Sasuke. It seemed like he either had more chakra than Kakashi had estimated, or was a genius at optimization, which sounded much more useless than it was. A shinobi - or a kunoichi, obviously - could get much more done if he could make their techniques take less chakra. A good decision as Sasuke seemed to like making.

He glanced over at Naruto, noting the completely boring run up. Nothing to see there.

Sasuke had fallen seven minutes in and had scarily little chakra. It meant that he probably had at least a fifth left - were Sakura’s body to be chakra deprived it would disappear from Kakashi’s senses entirely. The child sat down on the clearing and started eating. Was he trying to make his body produce more chakra quicker? Good, good!

Sakura was still struggling on her side. Her clones were more or less at the top now, soon she’d have to lessen the amount of clones and try again - if she went down by about ten to fifteen it would be most optimal. It would take her a lot less time to get to that same point on the tree with less clones, maybe an hour or so. She seemed to be shaking pretty badly by this point. Huh. He’d have to have an eye out for her if she overdid it. It was quite surprising to see her so determined to get the exercise first, after all she’d seemed like a girly girl worried only by her looks. Did the change into Naruto change so much? Maybe her not being a girl would help him in the long run? So maybe he shouldn’t encourage her to care about Naruto’s hair?

On the other hand, if he made her so used to the idea of competing with the boys she did it automatically, training would surely go much faster. Could he start that habit with the hair jutsu? Maybe as a reward for competing the tree walking technique? But that was much too easy… No. He’d give them something extracurricular and announce the hair jutsu as a reward. Maybe Naruto would prove himself to be a nice and easy sheep that will go along with his teammates’ desires? The technique he’d assign them needed to be useful…

They had such different chakra styles and capacities, it would be impossible for them to take one thing and find it equally hard. But, if he gave them three techniques suited them uniquely… So what would work? He had to think about it a bit more; his choice would definitely force them on the lanes he wanted them to take.

He looked over at Sasuke. The child seemed to be napping. It wasn’t the worst it could do, but meditation would have surely helped more.

Naruto was still bullheadedly charging through. It was quite frustrating to watch.

Sakura was off by a few centimeters. She was as far off to optimum as she could be. He sighed, knowing she wouldn’t change her approach even if she noticed the lack of progress; she was too woozy. He stood up grumpily and jumped from the tree to land beside her prone form. “Sakura.” he enunciated softly. No reaction. “Sakura.” he repeated louder. Nothing. He wasn’t too worried, he could hear her beating heart perfectly fine from where he stood. He nudged her lightly with his foot only to be rewarded by a cute kittenish glare at the ground. “Sakura, look at your teacher when he so benevolently offers you complimentary help.” he eye smiled at her, even though she wasn’t looking at him. The things he did for his minions, honestly. He nudged her again. She growled. How cute!

“You’re wasting your time right now.” he informed her as a matter of fact. “You can focus on perfecting it once you’re able to do it without any clones. Right now you should be reducing the amount of your clones. Do you think you will be able to make over sixty clones each time you want to use your chakra?” Her eyes welled up in tears in response but she nodded in agreement. “Each time reduce your clones by 20 to 25%. That should be the most optimal.” She nodded. Good. He jumped back onto his tree, nobody except Sakura any wiser of his presence.

Sakura dispelled fifteen clones. At least she was a good minion.

* * *

Sasuke woke up from his nap. He could see Shisui-Naruto running up to about eighty percent of his tree, which might have been a bit worrisome if he didn’t witness it twice more (in the same exact time and style) a few seconds later. Watching the idiot was surprisingly hypnotic - he went through the same motions each time. Jon-Sakura, on the other hand had about ten clones running up the tree and was nearing the top of the tree dangerously fast. He watched somewhat resignedly as Jon-Sakura touched down on top. Except that she wasn’t celebrating? Why wouldn’t she? Instead the clones jumped down to the forest floor, one of them landing on its’ head and poofing away. She got rid of two more clones and started all over again, managing to get only halfway up the tree before blasting off.

What did that tell him? She clearly reduced the number of clones and got worse in result. Did that mean that she had to start over each reduction? Why would she do it then? He could vaguely remember her operate on about thirty clones. It seemed like he had plenty of time if that was the case. It was just a pity that he still had too little chakra to get to the top. As it were now he estimated him getting maybe halfway up and running out of chakra.

It was time to optimize the hell out of this. He set his foot on the tree again and carefully tried using as much chakra as he had during his earlier experiment. The problem with the method he was using was that he didn’t remember clearly how much chakra he had used. He tried doing it naturally and was relieved to note that his previous estimations had been quite pessimistic. He’d could probably manage a quarter more. He made his second step, before thinking better and backing of too taking his things with him. That way he could rest and eat well while high up in the sky and finish off the quarter when his chakra recharged.

He took his first steps up awkwardly and focus on his chakra output. Was it all truly necessary? His feet felt a bit like they were glued with a too strong of a glue, which, were he running up would probably be less noticeable as he’d most probably be using much more force for each step and yanking out his feat. He could probably use a bit less of his chakra overall. He wouldn’t fall off, probably.

He lessened the amount of chakra he let go with each step and grit his teeth anticipating a quick fall. It didn’t happen. Instead his feet connected with the bark just as smoothly as they had earlier, if not smoother. That was a good start. He replicated the chakra level during the next steps waiting for his body to adjust to the newly input data. It took about ten steps but finally he could feel himself get less restless and more settled in. Could he get away with lessening it slightly more? Maybe… He stopped completely for a second trying to get a feel of that low thrumming of chakra expenditure.

He reduced the chakra output again to a point it was still much higher than what he was currently feeling but much lower than he had been using to that moment. He felt his leg slip, so he quickly gathered his thoughts and stuck himself by his side when it hit the tree. He could not afford to lose progress. He would only lose over his dead body; a dead last and a fan girl were pretty pathetic people to lose against.

He slid his foot down so that the sole was facing the tree and played with his chakra, starting from nearly nonexistent usage and going up cautiously and slowly. It was pretty awesome how easily he could communicate with it as it had never been this simple before. He needed to get his chakra into his left pinkie only? No problem! He could do that in a second. Catch himself from falling of the tree by sticking with his hip via an even amount of chakra on the whole surface? Coming right up! He was pretty sure nobody from the Academy would be able to do that for a while yet. It made him feel reluctantly proud of Sakura.

He only managed to stick himself with a bit more chakra than he had assumed before, making the usage about a fifth of what he had used at the beginning. It wasn’t… horrible. Maybe he’d get back to it later. Right now he needed to get to the top.

* * *

Naruto watched in frustration as Sakura started to stroll up the tree with so much _grace_ and casual superiority. She had gone away for a few hours during the hellish practice! She had gotten something to eat - but only for herself! She had taken a huge and long nap! And yet she was still better than him! He had been working on this for _so. much. time._ and yet he still couldn’t win? He’d be fine if Naruto - his body - won. He had seen him work hard and long, taking no breaks in between just as Naruto -his mind - had had. He could see it improve faster each time it reduced a clone or two.

And here he was, still unable to do it. He had waaay less chagira than in his body. It was a nice feeling, like some of the huge load of weight he had on him had been forced to lift off and leave him alone. He would take this relief over a lot of the thing any day! But! But, but, but. If he had so much less gachira, then shouldn’t this come easier and quicker to him than whoever it was in his body? (Was it still him there? Did he accidentally take over his teammates’ bodies and was unaware of the fact?)

It was so unfair. He wanted to give up. But he was all too aware that if he did, nobody would care. Nobody would come to motivate him. Old man Hokage was cool but he didn’t really care, did he? He had only ever let Naruto come in to his office, he hadn’t even come to visit Naruto, ever. He acted all nice but so did the people at the market. They were just worse at hiding their dislike. It was normal. Civilians would never be as cool as ninja. It was obvious. It was the way of life. And Iruka? Yeah, they had kind of started a tentative relationship, but Iruka didn’t know Naruto. Naruto had saved him. Of course he’d promote him! Wouldn’t it be so awkward to be saved by an academy student? It was bad enough that Naruto was only a genin. Sakura obviously didn’t care about him at all. It was just nice to pretend sometimes, was all. At least Sasuke seemed to care if Naruto was there at least a tiny bit, even if it was in a tsundere kind of way - and now he was gone and Naruto had taken over his place. Nobody would notice him now. It was just like him! Taking away the only person that cared!

He bit his lip harshly and screamed. “I’ll win! Believe it!” Even if he knew he wouldn’t. _Somebody_ had to believe in him, it might as well had been himself.

He started running up again, wanting to give it his all at least once more. He could hear two Narutos cheer and one poof away. Naruto-body without any clones was starting to run up the tree. He peeked at Sakura’s tree. He was still strolling up, even if his pace seemed to have quickened a little. He was a bit over the halfway point on his tree. Which one of them would it be? He accelerated as much as he could, but it was obvious. He wasn’t able to win. He would never stop trying. That wasn’t his ninja way.

Here he was, in the air, four meters still remaining. He watched as Sakura marched rapidly, Naruto-body quickly gaining on her. As he started to fall, he could hear the delighted shrieks of the victor. He was satisfied. Not happy, not in any way. But satisfied. That the one that hadn’t worked nearly as hard as he, hadn’t won. Naruto knew - it wasn’t a good way to think. He should have been positive! And he would be! He would be in just a second!

Once he managed to get the beaten remains of his hope and pride from the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has taken a long time but I'm back :)  
> Feedback is very welcome; what was done well, what not so much - I'd love to get better as a writer and it would really help a lot.  
> Thank you so much for all the virtual gratification you've given me for the first chapter!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm back... :')  
> The holidays kicked my ass and now I'm back at school - the last year of High School is killing me :)  
> Sorry 'bout the long absence (if anybody's reading this) - I'm a huge attention whore so knowing that somebody is actually doing that would be cool.  
> Also, Kakashi is still a bit of a dick. If you have an idea that would help him change his whole personality hmu in the comments! I want the characters to change slowly in response to the outside stimuli. The next chapter will probably make him nicer... maybe? Idk - how I portray Kakashi in the fic is how I see the most efficient teachers operate. What makes him an ass in my portrayal of him? Is it the harsh words? The killer expectations? If it's the expectations, well...  
> If you see any mistakes, let me know.  
> Anyways, onto the chapter!

As he walked down the main street he pondered on the direction he should go with the training of the hellish brats. If he wanted them to get into ANBU fast, they needed to have the skills ANBU desired the most in its agents - stealth. Full frontal attack was definitely not done there. There were pretty much exactly three months left to the Chunin Exams - ANBU took in chuunin and above. If he managed to train them enough to make them pass on the first try, he’d get rid of them pretty fast. He knew if they died there he’d be saddled with another team - the Hokage didn’t care about the Academy’s graduates’ bright futures nearly as much as he said he did. Nothing else should have been expected from a military dictator.

The next day would be spent perfecting tree walking - a pesky but necessary activity. Would everything else take as long? Would he be able to stomach it? Would he be able to cram enough information into their heads? If getting water walking was going to take as long he’d probably imitate Bird in hanging himself.

What a thought! Fifteen years of service in ANBU and he’d been fine - now barely two weeks had gone by and he’s already resigned to his fate…

He’d probably need to involve himself even further into the hellions’ training if he wanted them to pass those damned exams. Normal combat was also important. Conditioning of the body and learning taijutsu were both essential for genin. He’d schedule that before lunch. There simply wouldn’t be time for them to go out on their own in town so he’d have to buy them lunch. And brunch. And dinner. Shinobi in training needed a lot of food - they burned it off just a moment later either way. He’d definitely spend a pretty penny on it… But getting back his freedom would be worth the pain in his heart. Making others pay for him was a favorite hobby of his and a tradition at that. Everybody knew what to expect. He wondered what Ferret would have said if he’d ever seen Kakashi willingly buy somebody a meal… She probably would have thought him an impostor.

At least he’d be able to shove more vitamins down their throats! Veggies, here they came. They would pay for his pain with their own suffering. After lunch he’d let them take a nap to gain back some energy - they’d have to listen attentively to his lectures after lunch. Maybe an hour of theory? Then some reading or chakra control training. He was sure the civilians wouldn’t mind to help raise the skills of their defenders. Then dinner. Then some more training. There was no place for slackers on his team.

He’d have to supervise closely - making them get the lessons quickly was important. To participate in the Chunin Exams they’d also need to take at least twenty D-rank missions and a C-rank one - a pretty pathetic requirement but they were at peace - the exams were as kind as they’d ever be. Maybe he’d get Sakura to complete the D-ranks except for a few in exchange for a special treat? That would save some time… Experience with C-ranks would be much more useful in the end, as well as his training.

“Kakashi-sensei!” Well, damn. He’d been hoping the menace wouldn’t see him. It seemed like luck wasn’t on his side today. He hummed not looking up from the book. The child was reaching for him! He caught himself mid-flinch before he accidentally killed the brat with the power of being unused to any nice touch. Of course, it would have never been able to catch the slight movement. Well, maybe in a few years. They wouldn’t have any contact with each other by then, which meant that it was fine. The hand clasped around his pant-leg on his left thigh.

He flinched much more noticeably, this time from the shock mixed with disgust. He did not like touching. The hand left his pants and he actually heaved a small sigh of relief! Pathetic. He was being so obvious with his disgust! Nobody had touched him ever since Minato-sensei died. He was itching to get away from this situation…

“Kakashi-sensei? Can you give me some pointers on the tree walking thing?” It asked miserably. It looked like a mix of a weeping puppy and Minato-sensei at his saddest - a heartbreaking view. Just how desperate did it have to be for it to go to him? He’d shown them quite straightforwardly that he wasn’t going to do that. However, the pitiful creature in front of him made him feel the slightest bit charitable. He just really wanted to make it stop looking so down, so he decided to actually play along this one time.

“Didn’t you manage to finish the exercise I had given you?” He asked, knowing perfectly well that it had very well had. It managed to get to the top half an hour after the pink fiend and halfway intelligent imp did - a full seven hours of training -twenty-eight times longer than it had taken Kakashi. Of course he couldn’t have left it out there alone. His moral compass didn’t let him. It hunched on itself self-consciously and asked in a hopeful voice: “You watched me?! Seriously?! You didn’t leave like they had?!”

“Nope!”

A sniffle met his exclamation. “Seriously…?” It asked, disbelieving.

It would start sobbing any second now, he just knew it! He picked it up by the scruff as if he would a kitten (not really. but it sure sounded cute.) and went back to the training ground. He put it on the ground and backed away cautiously. It did start sobbing, if not outright bawling. Alright, then… He waited for it to stop crying (a solid ten minutes).

“Alright then, brat. Why do you want more training?” He asked, honestly interested. He’d made a mistake when he’d profiled the creature and he wanted to know where.

The sobbing came back. Joy. “They… they both…” sniffle “I’m so useless!” sob “Sakura didn’t! Di-didn't even try!” shudder “Why am I so dumb?” cough “They must be… better than me! I know- I know-oh that my body has much more ka-ka-kachura.” heave “But it still is better. Than me. How? I must be an idiot!”

Ah. See, that made sense! “Chakra.” Kakashi muttered absentmindedly, staring at it.

“So you want to be better than them?”

“Ye-yeah.”

“Alright, then! Stick yourself to the ground!” he exclaimed as cheerfully as he could. Hard work paid off and he’d need to convince them of that as soon as possible. He would have to show it that if they came to him in search for more training, he wouldn’t turn them down. Three months. Just three months. If he had to suffer through more exposure to the brats for that long, he would. Although, the one now wasn’t as annoying when it wasn’t baiting Sasuke or shouting bullshit. He could take it.

“What?! Like… Now?”

He hummed. “If you use it all the time, you will have to to become natural at some point. It will also help train your reserves.” He felt a sudden surge of chakra - way too much of it. He tried not to cringe. “That’s a bit too much. Still. Okay. That’s about it. Try walking around.” He was proud of himself for managing to be so nice. It did what he asked. The movements were very slow now, as if each step required gathering the chakra again only knowing more or less the amount and gauging it. Each time the amount was getting too wonky, he commented on it. Funnily enough, the child didn’t seem to mind at all! Weird child. Maybe it was the niceness of his comments?

He had to admit though - it definitely sped up the time needed for it to get it. Not wholly surprising, just depressing. He’d be spending so much time with the children.

Eventually - after about two hours - it had the correct amount down to a t. Finally. After nine hours. Wow. “Good brat,” He said just as he had all those years ago spent training dogs.

It beamed at him.

The dogs definitely didn’t do that.

“What now?! How can I improve it now?!” it shouted at him. Kakashi frowned the slightest bit - making it nowhere near possible for it to see it - he disliked loud noises.

“Now you use it all the time, walking, running, jumping… Doesn’t matter. You can stop while you sleep.” He remembered to add, remembering Sasuke’s unfortunate situation that morning.

“Okay! Believe it! I’ll totally do it all the time!” It screamed.

He hummed and puffed away in a shunshin. On another thought, the shouting was pretty bothersome even without the other menaces.

* * *

Naruto looked down on the ground, his feet were still sticking to it even though it definitely wasn’t necessary. What a weird way to train. Most importantly, how had he been supposed to know that he had been using too much chakra now that Kakashi left him all alone? It wasn’t like he could measure it… It felt much better right now than it did during the day - his feet didn’t feel like they were going to rip apart anymore. He hadn’t known that was possible! Kakashi-sensei sure knew what he was doing!

Speaking of him… Naruto remembered the weird (but strong) vibe that went through him when he had touched Kakashi-sensei. It was full of so many bad things! Being scared, disgusted, ashamed, surprised, disbelieving… And the lighter, near-instant relief after he’d let go. It was sad, but not unusual. He could still remember his big sister flinching and emanating similar emotion when he’d touched her the first few times. He felt a pang of sadness go through him at the thought of her. He didn’t like to think about her. Each time he did, he instantly was very uncheerful - something that everybody disliked about him even more than him being cheerful.

It was time to eat!

* * *

Sakura entered the house warily craving a hot shower and something to eat. It still felt weird to come home and have nobody there. She had to do everything by herself - even cook! - which wasn’t too horrible, except that she was nowhere as good at it as her mom. It also took a lot of time - right then she was so tired she wanted to faceplant her bed and fall asleep instantly. But she didn’t. She acted very adult instead and went to the kitchen to make her own dinner.

Living alone sucked a lot sometimes. If she didn’t know better, she’d even pity Naruto a bit for his lack of a mom and dad. But she did, so she wouldn’t. Or at least that’s what she told herself while her feelings ignored her. So annoying! What was also annoying was that Sasuke seemed to have perfected it in a minute after having had gone away for a tiny, little, completely inconsequential hourly break. And then, after finally getting back, he saw her almost get it - and he went to sleep! Not only that, but he also didn’t treat her seriously at all! He strutted on the tree, walking so slowly, teasing her, taunting, as if it wasn’t even worth it to run! Did he really think she was so pathetic? Did he not respect her at all?

Although, after that Stunt in the morning (self-obliviation failed to have worked unfortunately) she was pretty sure he hadn’t an ounce of respect for her. She had worked so fucking hard on her hair. She had researched and learned! Tried out every little tip she came across! Modulated the hotness of the water while washing it so that it fitted her needs perfectly - and that included a very cold finish that was hellish during the winter! She had avoided hair ties (as they damaged hair a lot) - something that the asshole discarded at the first opportunity. Was training easy with the hair down, flying about, chocking her every five fucking seconds? No! But she did it because she wanted nice hair! She had literally never skipped conditioner after washing her hair, even when she’d been completely exhausted after her day at the Academy.

But, that asshole! He went against so many hair care rules, it made her want to cry hysterically. (Which she totally did do and there was nobody there to disturb her or comment on her being overemotional.) So that was great! The love of her life didn’t acknowledge her in any way whatsoever! He had even avoided being in her vicinity after that nightmare-come-to-life out of what? Disgust? It sure seemed likely after what she’d seen from him today.

She tapped her foot on the floor impatiently, waiting for the water to boil. The stir fry took her fifteen minutes to assemble - eighteen too long. She was sure she wouldn’t have been so ravenously hungry had she been in her body. As always, she got the short end of the stick! Her life was such a joke sometimes!

She was going to have to wake up at four thirty just to manage in time with her breakfast making, and what would she even eat for lunch? There wouldn’t be any time for her to go out if she wanted to beat than annoyance into the ground with her superiority like she had today - had he not gone to town she wouldn’t have won. And that nap, later! His self-importance just oozed on her!

She took the clumsily cut up ingredients from a clone and made it go ready her clothes for the next day. Not having to actually do the work by herself was very nice sometimes. It just sucked a lot that a clone sleeping didn’t help at all, nor would a showering one. The noodles were hastily taken out by her - they seemed to already be falling apart slightly. She threw them onto the pan alongside the ingredients. But wait! Didn’t her mom start with only the vegetables?

She supposed it didn’t matter that much as long as it remained edible. As it turned out it was, if barely. She sighed in relief as she filled her stomach hastily to make it shut up. She hoped it would stop hurting soon. Her huge portion of stir fry seemed to turn into thin air in a matter of seconds. It still surprised her how much of an appetite she could have.

With the dinner done, Sakura headed towards the toilet, dreading what she’d find under her filthy clothes. She didn’t think she’d ever be fine with being a boy. Whoever exchanged her with Naruto sure had a cruel type of humor to do that to her. She was quite glad for the high number of copies of the clothing she had purchased the day before. It would be helpful tomorrow - she wouldn’t look like a homeless person even if she didn’t wash her outfit. She quite dreaded the idea of cleaning the lightly colored material. Maybe it hadn’t been such a great idea? She didn’t know how to even start getting the dirt out of the material. But! That was a problem for another day.

As she was walking to the toilet, her eyes fell on the bedroom door. She shuddered slightly as she quickly averted her gaze. The most dreaded activity of the day would come soon. Sakura had never had too many nightmares as herself. Now, though… She hadn’t known it possible to be that furious and hateful… To have it directed at her?

She wasn’t sure how long she could take it.

* * *

Even though Sasuke had napped away for about two hours that afternoon, as well as not really having had moved that much at all, he was still tired to the bone. The impostors were still there and healthy but as they had tried to hug him upon his entrance, that wouldn’t be so obvious in the near future. As they had come within his personal bubble, his hand tightened around his ball, sending erratic chakra through it, probably making it light up spectacularly - not that he looked. He was too panicked. He may have also backed up to the wall in a panic. Only after he’d done it did he realize that they were mere civilians. He could take like… fifty of them. At once. Yeah, they were complete weaklings. Although, he was a weakling as well now… So maybe he’d take twenty instead?

He had watched them exchange concerned looks before they’d asked him what his matter was. As if he’d tell them. He’d glared at them instead of replying, earning himself another series of concerned looks. As if he cared. At least they fed him. That was a tiny plus. He was a bit hungry - Sakura’s dysfunctional body trying to tell him it was famished. He had managed to stuff himself to the brim with a plate containing about as much as he usually ate when he’d still been in his own body. He had barely managed to roll from the table. He had raced to the toilet for a frantic, brisk shower, where he also managed somehow to untie the knot he had on his head.

“Sakura?!” the impostor mother shouted out from behind the door. He did not deign her deserving of a reply. She would surely go away any second now… “I’m coming in!”

What?

The door started opening, making him shriek loudly. It shut. He sighed in relief. He went back to his showering nervously, eyeing the door distrustfully. He mulled over the weird family that had created the fangirl. They intruded on each other in the washroom. Why? He couldn’t think of a time that anybody in his family passed time in the toilet together. Was this family so poor that they couldn’t afford a second lavatory? The Uchiha Clan could obviously be called privileged but it seemed like a small expense.

Did Sakura come from a commoner family? He had money, maybe he should look into it? A second toilet to make it less necessary to gather inside? Would that help them?

He was finished bathing. What now? Could he sneak into Sakura’s bedroom surreptitiously? Civilians had bad senses. They wouldn’t notice a thing.

He gathered his things as quietly as he could and started opening the door as silently as he could. So far so good. He peeked outside. All clear. He relaxed marginally and started creeping into the room slowly. The door was open! Did he leave it open? Would he really? He tended to close each door shut - any barrier between him and the people that weren’t him was preferable. He peeked inside, expecting an enemy (That Man could be hiding anywhere), but… It was Empty. He breathed a sigh of relief. He pushed the wooden door lightly and entered the room, carefully closing it behind him.

There didn’t seem to be anybody inside… He walked over to the pink closet and started searching for a good space to leave the Red monstrosity in. He preferred to have no obstacles if anybody attacked him during the night, much less ones that caused him significant emotional distress when he looked at them. He noted the other clothes once more and once more contemplated if the reduced reach of his hands, as well as his flexibility was worth it. While they weren’t Red, they were very frilly and small. He could see no normal pants in the closet.

How weird did somebody have to be to not own a pair of sweatpants?

He frowned, starting to be a bit more aggressive with the things inside. Seriously? How many dresses could you have? And why would you ignore them all in favor of one of them - the most ugly one at that. It was a mystery. He noted a shirt that looked more or less normal, that was pushed up to the wall. He must’ve not seen it because of the huge stack of skirts that had been lying in front of it.

He just didn’t understand! This girl was a ninja! Ninjas weren’t supposed to play fashion! Trousers were necessary! They were great in muffling the impact of the ground on the legs.

“Sakura!” He flinched, rapidly spinning around, pressing his back against the shelves. Whoever would startle a ninja? Were they stupid? He could feel steps getting closer to him - making him nervous, his body more and more tense. The person entered the room. “Oh, there you are! I didn’t hear you come out of the bathroom! Are you playing ninja? Is it something your teacher told you to do? Did he actually start training you?” It was a female voice, but a lady it was not.

His Mother had been a lady. She had been dignified and strong. Her food was always delicious and beautiful.

Impostor Mother was loud.

“I saw the new hairdo! It wasn’t perfect, if you wanted, I could teach you!” He squinted at her. Would she be of any help?

“Fine.” he snapped, feeling very glad that it wasn’t his Mother standing before him. She would have beat him up for talking to her like that.

“Okay!” her voice seemed more forced, but she didn’t even tell him off. Weird woman.

She walked over to the bed and sat on it, looking at him with expectation in her eyes. What did she want! Could she not speak up? He looked at her, feeling completely lost. She patted the bed. He raised his eyebrows. What were those undignified moves?

“Come over here.” she was starting to sound exasperated. He looked at her suspiciously as he approached his bed. “Sit.” He sat on the other side of the bed legs firmly together, futilely trying to remember the little bits he heard about the compartment of ladies when his female cousins had been told off. Stupid Man, why did he off the clan so soon? He could have at least waited for Sasuke to learn what he had to learn! How was he supposed to compensate the lack of manners from the Female Impostor if he had none himself?!

She looked at him suspiciously, moving towards him.

He moved away.

She moved closer.

They continued that until he was sitting in the corner, surrounded on all sides by a very pink wall, a pink ceiling, the mattress covered by pink covers, and the Impostor. He didn’t feel particularly threatened, he tried to lie to himself. He doubted that she could hold a kunai, much less operate a mythical set of Sharingan eyes that were able to torture him splendidly. For sure. So why was he so nervous?

She reached for him. He caught her wrist before it reached him and looked at her suspiciously. “Let me show you.” He would allow it.

She took his hair in her hands and separated it into three surprisingly even parts. “It’s going to be the simplest variation, for now. Once you get it, we can make it more complex and strong, okay?” She talked to him as if he were a child! Nobody had done that since his Mother had died! (He cautiously avoided thinking about That Man.) He didn’t like it. “Okay.” he mumbled, looking down on his lap. “You’re going to have to look at your hair if you learn.” She thought she was so smart, didn’t she? He grudgingly looked up to her hands.

She started twinning the three locks of hair around each other, making it all look so simple - but it wasn’t. He knew it wasn’t because he had tried it on his own before. He grumbled. How was this supposed to help? He knew what he should be doing in theory. It was the practice that he was mucking up!

“Your turn!” At least she wasn’t completely senseless.

“Hn.”

* * *

It was time to really get down to training the little devils. As shown the day before, none of them had the aptitude to do get the techniques on their own. He wondered just how much longer it would take for them to learn everything he wanted them to learn on their own if the simplest technique took so long - unreasonably so. The severe abbreviation of the time expenditure was one of the main reasons why the village sacrificed its strongest soldiers for training the Academy students with the most potential (and clan kids). The rest had to deal with getting no outside help while they scrambled to survive. (Another reason why he thought badly of any jonin who didn’t try to teach The Chosen anything of worth.)

As he was walking to Team Seven’s training ground, he could hear grunts coming from Team Guy’s training ground. It was slightly impressive - the time was a bit before six in the morning, the Sun only having risen half an hour earlier. He jumped on a tree and peeked inside. A mini-Guy was hitting a tree, practicing the same one strike. He was executing it flawlessly, putting enough strength into it, that were it one of Team 7 instead of the tree, they would be pushed back a few meters at least. Pretty impressive.

He continued on.

Asuma’s training grounds stood silent and waiting for the first genin to arrive. Unsurprising. None of them had the drive to come in so early. The previous days they had come in at nine, only to proceed to do nothing of any value for four more hours. Unacceptable. It had seemed impossible to Kakashi that a genin would make training impossible with their comportment. Even Sakura whined for only the first few minutes every time they had begun to run. Maybe Asuma hadn’t ignored them? Peculiar.

The next training ground belonged to Team Kurenai. He still didn’t understand the move on her part. She had barely been made a jonin, hadn’t even managed to make a name for herself yet, and she was taking a team on? It would make it near impossible for her to leave the village for missions of her own - well, any that weren’t C-rank. Those would definitely do nothing to make her shine.

Nobody was there either. They’d come in two hours, wasting precious time to better themselves. He’d tut if he was any less dignified.

A few meters more and he was on Team 7’s training ground. Sakura was there, dozing off every few seconds, sitting on the clearing. He would give her brownie points for being early. She presented the same amount of attention to her surroundings as before - that is none. Not surprising. He hadn’t drilled her on it yet.

“Hi!” he said cheerfully from his perch on a branch directly over Sakura about two meters above her. She shrieked splendorously. Naruto’s lungs were in very good shape at least. He could feel his ears ring a bit. “Good job, you little demon! You arrived early! From now on, we’ll take training seriously, okay?” She was glaring at him cutely, still clutching her chest. Was she trying to find her own heart? If so, she was off by about twelve centimeters. The Academy's level seemed to have hit rock bottom if she didn’t even know that. So. Anatomy lessons would need to be also scheduled. Okay.

“By the way, I suggest that you practice the tree walking technique as you are a little behind on it!” He used the technique from the day before - the Motivate Naruto by Being a Very Nice Kakashi to the Menace one - Nice Kakashi in short. Another screech. Weird creature. It had worked on Naruto.

“But I won yesterday! I was the best! Didn’t you mean Naruto? He sucked! He wasn’t even able to reach the top of the tree! Both Sasuke and I did!” He hadn’t had somebody shout at him with so much passion since the last time he’d woken up at the hospital. The nurses there were always full of spirit and energy.

“That’s right!” He ignored her screech of victory. “You should note that Sasuke got to the top five seconds after you - and only because he wasn’t able to run up just yet. Of course, I’ll put him to it as soon as he shows up. We have no time to waste. While you were resting at home, Naruto approached me after training with a plea of more training. We worked together for two hours and he perfected the technique during that time. Right now you can more or less move up the tree. He is much above that. So… Hop to it!” She screeched again, Jesus, was this girl loud.

“Why did you help him then, but not me!”

“He came to me, nicely asking me to train him.” Well, more or less at least.

“Are you telling me we only had to ask?!?!” His ears hurt. His head hurt. He was done.

“Well, yes!” He used a cheerful tone. No, not really. He hadn’t made the decision to do that just then. It was Naruto’s sad Min- blond- black! Sasuke had black hair! face that convinced him. “Now. If you want me to help, you’ll shut up. No more screeching. No more shouting. Ask.” Why did they insist on annoying him so much?

“Fine!”

He sighed.

* * *

As he arrived to the training grounds, Sasuke expected more of a reaction to his appearance. His hair was flawless today! The fan girl had always fawned over him - except for the day before, but that had been the first time it happened - not like he knew what happened. Girls were so weird. He was prepared for Sakura to come back on her knees and apologize for overreacting so blatantly and making him panic in response - but nothing happened.

She didn’t even look at him! Was she ignoring him? Why? She was being so illogically stubborn! She even seemed to ignore him even more (how was that even possible?) after a few seconds - so weird! It wasn’t like he cared, no way! He schooled his face into a mask of complete indifference to show the fan girl he wouldn’t bend to her moods. He wasn’t pretending, he really was indifferent! It was just completely peculiar to have the fan girl ignore him.

“Sasuke! You’ve finally joined us!” Sasuke flinched at Kakashi’s voice - it had come from only a meter away and he hadn’t even managed to spot him. Now that he looked, the lazy jonin was spread out on a nearby branch reading his porn. “You should probably get going with the tree walking exercise - we will begin the warm-up in fifteen minutes. If you don’t manage by then, you’ll have to work on it during your time off.” Sasuke gritted his teeth in anger. He completed the exercise the day before! “You might want to ask Sakura about that…” Not really, no. He’d pass. He wasn’t about to talk to that waste of space. Nu-uh. No.

“Hey, fan girl.” He spat. “Wh-”

“WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, YOU LITTLE SHIT! TREATING ME WITH SO LITTLE RESPECT? I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER! YOU HAVEN’T BEEN NICE TO ME EVEN ONCE DURING ALL THOSE YEARS THAT I FOLLOWED YOU-” That was untrue. He had to have been nice to her at some point. He was pretty sure all those times he refrained from insulting her had all been acts of kindness in and of itself. “BUT I’M DONE! NO MORE! I WON’T BE YOUR SLAVE ANYMORE SO FUCK YOU!” Girls were so irrational and hormonal. He hadn’t even done anything to her!

* * *

Naruto had finally showed up - half an hour late and showing no signs of hurry. He had also missed Sakura’s mental breakdown by about forty minutes. Maybe he should begin to call it The Breakdown 2? He was quite proud of Sakura, he was. She had finally seemed to grow a bit of a backbone! He was pretty sure she would’ve stewed in her anger until Naruto came to unload her frustrations on him - totally unfair. Kakashi was such a nice teacher, helping them out like that.

Naruto was walking casually through the training ground - until he saw Kakashi casually standing in the middle of the cleaning. His face then did a very interesting thing - it pinked, whitened, and greened at the same time. His expression was a mask of terrified surprise. A second later he was bent at the waist, enthusiastically shouting his apology. A smart thing to do. It stroked Kakashi’s ego to have somebody bow to him so low, so a few points for that, although the apology was far too loud and made him take a few of them back. Kakashi would let him pass this time. He wasn’t a monster. If anybody was late again, though? He would not be so nice. He told them all as much.

Sakura seemed petulantly disappointed. That girl was so angry all the time, he’d expected a loud outburst! Maybe she’d vented some of her frustration during The Breakdown 2? Some team exercises would be in order either way.

“Sakura, you almost have it.” He said, trying to give Naruto a clue he would actually notice. She most definitely did not almost have it. The stupefied expression on the brat’s face as his own body shrieked in response was a sight that Kakashi would treasure for a long time. Did he get it? Kakashi saw Naruto look at Sakura’s body pensively. Also, Sakura seemed to have recharged her anger! Maybe some movement would help her vent?

He went over to Naruto and whispered theatrically. “Did you get it?”

The child nodded, looking at the same time disappointed and relieved. These children were weird.

“Now that everybody is here we can focus on physical conditioning! But, first! Warm-up.” He summoned his pack happily and nearly giggled at the two making delighted noises. “Today’s warm up will be regulated by the pack. Each one of you will have some dogs next to you, making sure you aren’t slacking off. See you in an hour.” He smiled and swished his hand down - a sign for the dogs to begin herding the brats.

Their terrified shrieks were quite the pleasure to hear after the painful morning.

* * *

“Let’s take five minutes of break.”

She felt as if she was dying - and she had Naruto’s body. They’d been sent running. She had the doubtful pleasure of working with two of the biggest dogs in the whole pack. She had been very surprised when she had seen just how agile this body was. She had lasted the first half an hour without too many difficulties. But after those thirty minutes she experienced a crash in energy.

She was completely dog-tired. She could still remember how easily she felt tired in her own body. Had it been a different day, she might have felt bad for the Asshole - he had her body and all that. But it wasn’t a different day - so instead of feeling bad, she was simply satisfied as she saw his pain from where she was lying. She was pretty sure they hadn’t made him do the same marathon that went to her. Pretty unfair if you asked her.

She was currently lying on the ground, limp as an overcooked noodle. She was carefully considering if she should just go to sleep. She’d probably be able to get there in a second or two. Her eyes were closing on their own, she was sooo sleepy… She struggled for a second to not let them close, but ultimately decided it was no use. Much more effort that way - she was not feeling up for something that took effort, no thanks.

Two seconds later she was being violently shook by someone. She hissed at them and searched for a kunai sleepily. Her hand just didn’t come upon it on its own during her search - annoying. She cracked her eyes open and saw her pouch. She reached for it with the full intention of maiming the person who dared to wake her up nonsensically. The perpetrator’s shaking hand came back into her vision, begging to be sliced into ribbons. She took the kunai and waved it towards the hand. Her eyes were so bleary it flew harmlessly in the air, missing by a lot on the right. It came again. She misjudged again, her kunai going far off to the left.

She grunted. It was a tough choice. Should she stand up and hunt down the idiot that woke her up, making it impossible to go back to sleep or should she ignore the idiot and go back to sleep? She pondered it for a moment, ultimately choosing the hunt, her whole being crying for vengeance.

She stood up shakily, some of her chakra pouring out of her instinctually. It made some of her furious bloodlust seep out - not enough to help her in dealing with her emotions. The blurry form was running through the blurry training grounds away from her. She could run after it, sure. But why would she? Her legs hurt, her arms hurt, her whole body hurt. She’d much rather walk and use her brain - her specialty.

The form seemed to be panicking. How could she herd it more efficiently? Could she tire them out and make them keel over from exhaustion? Wouldn’t that be a viable option? She poured more chakra into the thing that made the form run around like a headless chicken. It ran into a tree. Fascinating! She tried to use even more chakra. It didn’t quite want to work, but it kind of, maybe, did. The form collapsed in a faint.

She smiled sadistically and gripped her kunai more forcefully. They would learn not to wake her up in the future if she cut them up a little bit, would they not? She walked over to the form. Just as she was thinking of a good maiming technique, something snatched her away. She pouted and pointed her chakra to the rude something. It didn’t seem to work. Was it broken? She was shook roughly. Rude.

“…Sakura. Sakura! Sakura, come back!”

She swung her kunai petulantly.

* * *

When Kakashi-sensei had told them to go wake up Sakura, Naruto definitely hadn’t been expecting her to throw herself at the person responsible for waking her up with a knife and that thing that the Kyuubi did. The one that showed somebody their brutal and imminent death. As much as Naruto experienced it over the years from the fluffy beast (in his dreams among other scenarios), he was still feeling a teeny tiny bit shook - not enough to flinch, although he did blink in surprise. It was nothing compared to the other times he’d felt it, true.

But apparently, he was a bit abnormal as Sasuke didn’t seem to deal with it as well, what with him running into a tree and fainting. Now who was a pathetic shinobi, hmm? Maybe it was a bit vindictive of him to make fun of a person just because they saw their death (not like they were ninja - doing the job with the highest mortality rate). Whatever. It was still funny.

Kakashi-sensei didn’t seem to even blink in response - he was such a cool ninja! He seemed to be observing the situation silently from the sidelines. It was pretty interesting, Naruto had to admit. Sakura was only stopped when it was clear she was just standing there over Sasuke looking scary. She seemed to be in some kind of a trance. She didn’t react in any way even when Kakashi called out her name. It was kind of freaky.

She was gathered up by Kakashi-sensei and transported to where Naruto was sitting. Kakashi-sensei took out the kunai out of her hand and went to fetch Sasuke, who was dumped nearby a bit later.

They were quite the team, weren’t they? He was pretty sure none of their classmates attacked their teammates with the willingness to kill them because of being woken up by them. But who knew? Sakura didn’t look the type either. For all he knew Hinata could be a crazed pervert - you never knew.

Kakashi-sensei looked at Naruto. “Let’s just wait for them to snap out of it.”

Naruto was cool with that! He still felt too weak to stand up so a break would be nice!

Fifteen minutes later, Kakashi-sensei was starting to look a bit impatient.

Another ten minutes and he stood up, gesturing Naruto to do the same.

“We’re going to spar. Taijutsu only. Give me your all.”

Cool! More attention. He was always happy with more attention on him - nobody seemed willing to indulge him, ever. He rushed at Kakashi-sensei, laughing.

* * *

Sparring with Naruto was completely different than anything he was used to - he had to go easy on the child and in some magical way make him improve. Honestly, he wasn’t sure who was learning more; him - learning teaching, or Naruto - learning taijutsu. The fist that was sent to him was so wonky! He carefully adjusted the appendage that was thrust at him while it was still flying at him, before jumping back to his place and blocking.

Actually it was probably Kakashi who was picking things up quicker - he was not only more experienced in the learning department, but also Naruto seemed to suck at taijutsu.

There were almost no ingrained forms in the child, even if Sasuke had trained extensively it changed nothing. Naruto didn’t know what his body could do. Kakashi could see him fight with his meatsuit extensively. He’d have to gauge the style that had been drilled into Sasuke and teach it to Naruto to make him and his body stop fighting. It would go by much faster than just any random technique. He was almost sure it was the style favored by the Uchiha, or rather a shy beginning of it. He’d teach it a slightly modified version, one that didn’t rely on the Sharingan quite as much. Manually developing your dependency on a skill was the height of stupidity.

His mind drifted back to Sakura, as he gently twisted Naruto’s leg into a form. He also didn’t like reading people wrongly - and it seemed that he had done so with Sakura as well as with Naruto - she wasn’t a meek little fangirl. She honestly seemed pretty ill-equipped to deal with kunoichi-hood right now.

It was perfectly normal for an experienced shinobi to have a knee-jerk reaction of trying to kill somebody when getting woken up. It was something completely different to have a fresh and green genin to do the same. The Academy was like a kiddie playground right now - nothing traumatizing ever happened. There was no way she had killed somebody by now, so why the reaction? Did her parents abuse her? What was it? He contemplated the problem as he waited for the miniature monsters to wake up.

All through the spar Sakura showed signs of coming to herself bit by bit. About twenty minutes in Sasuke woke up with a flinch and curled himself in a small ball. He’d give them ten more minutes to recover. Then, it was showtime.

* * *

His Brother had done the same. He’d attacked Sasuke with his killing intent, drilling into him, making him panic and freeze like a mannequin. Sasuke could still remember how it felt to be so unable to move. It had been terrifying. He never wanted to experience it again.

So when Sakura speared him through with her meager replica (and he knew the original very well - it was hard not to remember the thing that you experienced each night) he’d run. At least he hadn’t frozen over. Although the idea of running from the fan girl seemed ludicrous right now.

He could recall that one second when the killing intent replicated His too well. Sasuke had fainted. He’d went back to His world - that bone-chilling Red Red Red World. He didn’t want to go back there. It always meant pain pain pain-

Uncle Akira who had always let him come over and play with - bisected by a sword

Aunt Emiko - always so elegant with her tastefully arranged hair - blown up by a series of tags - bloody - hair in disarray -

Baby cousin Kichi - so caring - so playful - gutted by a sword bigger than him

Why?

What was it for?

Some sadistic pleasure?

What did a toddler ever do to Monster Itachi?

Why did he have to take away everybody?

Why?

Why?

Why?

–he woke up–

He didn’t feel better. He could still see the bodies in his mind.

The wind was blowing at him.

It grounded him in the reality.

As he always did, he reached for the ground, touching, trying to feel the texture wholly.

Grass. The blades were coarse under his fingers, stabbing him everywhere they touched him.

Dirt. It got under his nails, dirtied his fingers. It irritated his skin further.

He could hear rhythmic thumps coming from his left.

Auntie flashed before his eyes.

He shut them forcefully.

Somebody was speaking. Kakashi?

Kakashi.

“…Sakura used killing intent…”

“…have to teach you to control it…”

“…that’s why today…”

“…important to learn…”

He didn’t want to learn it.

He didn’t want to experience it.

“…start now…”

He didn’t want it!

But…

But?

Could It be useful?

It was a Weakness.

He wasn’t Weak!

Maybe he could use it on That Man?

It could be a symbol of him growing stronger than Him.

The last time… That Man… Did It.

And now? Sasuke would.

* * *

“As you might suspect, killing intent needs your intention to kill somebody. Be warned, it can actually severely hurt civilians on its own. None of you are to try it at home. Sakura, you managed to get it on your own so you’ll have an easier job completing the first step - but next time please don’t use your teammate as the killee. You all have ten minutes to get it on your own. After that period I’ll come and guide you through it. Naruto, Sasuke. Choose a target you’d like to kill and focus on it.”

Naruto frowned to himself. How could he do it? He’d probably need a target first… Maybe that old man that spat on him a few weeks ago? But wasn’t it a bit excessive to want to kill somebody for that? He wouldn’t be actually killing the old fart, though… He grasped his chakra - something that had been wholly impossible to accomplish in his body but that he could do now - and tried to shape it into killing stuff. It didn’t seem to care at all. It just flopped around him chaotically.

He made it calm down with the force of his will. Why was this being so against his nature? He knew killing intent very well by now - the Kyuubi certainly showed him how it worked. So why could he not do it?

He focused his chakra into a point. It was pretty small - he was used to having a lot of chakra and balling it up. It was probably the only thing Iruka had managed to teach him over the years. The teacher had repeated it until everybody could repeat it in their sleep. Naruto certainly could - he’d fallen asleep in class quite often.

He tried to generate some dislike for the man. Anything? But it seemed he was too used to that as all he felt was complete resignation.

Although… There was one person who definitely deserved his hate. He’d almost managed to forget about him - it was his way of dealing with trauma and so far it worked. (More or less - crippling trauma for a few seconds was preferable than crippling trauma all the time.) But now that he had thought about Iruka, he remembered Mizuki as well. How could anybody turn traitor?

Naruto certainly had gotten his fair share of scorn over the years. Was he a raging freak? No. It was stupid! Why Mizuki would decide to get rid of the rest of his life for some stupid scroll he didn’t know. It was stupid. Mizuki was stupid. He dared attack a bystander - Iruka - just because he was there. Iruka was in his top five people - attacking him was a no-no.

It made him angry. He could feel his chakra take shape on its own but it seemed quite constipated. He focused on that shape and felt the charka on the soles of his feet run amok. Why was it so uncooperative? He forced his feet to stick again. His intent began to clarify… Why were feet needed in projecting killing intent anyway? They certainly didn’t feel anything - that was his brain.

He felt as if he was trying to balance on top of two balls stacked on top of each other all the while a huge wind was trying to topple him. Not cool. He’d never been good at the balance stuff.

He tried again. For a single second he wanted to abandon the tree walking jutsu on his feet but Kakashi-sensei had said not to! He focused again, insistently trying to convince his charka to work with him.

* * *

Kakashi eyed Naruto bemusedly. What the child was attempting was a technique that was much harder than anything he had planned to teach Team 7. Multitasking with one’s chakra was pretty hard - more so if the techniques were as different from each other. It took Kakashi a whole day to get it down. He wondered for a second if he should just let the brat do what it wanted. But that would definitely hold everyone back from learning more vital stuff.

Maybe he’d work on it later with Naruto.

He noticed Sasuke looking with clear superiority at Naruto. Naivety wasn’t cute. Sasuke had managed to turn on a small trickle of killing intent in the air - barely a tenth of what had come instinctively to Sakura. He clearly thought that his pathetic attempt was better than the one that had come from Naruto. Stupid children annoyed Kakashi.

He walked over to Naruto and thumped him lightly on the head with his book. “How ambitious of you, brat. Now turn off the Tree Walking Technique.” Was that sufficient encouragement? It just looked confused. Kakashi sighed. “Multitasking is cool, but it’s very hard.” There, a spark of understanding!

A look of focus, then a ray of killing intent.

Would you look at that! It was pretty good! Definitely better than Sasuke’s pitiful attempt.

He sneaked a peak at Sasuke. Did his pettiness cease its’ existence? A look of shock, jealousy. Eyes squinted, face locked in a look of constipation. ‘How comical,’ Kakashi drolly thought as his eyes slid towards Sakura. She wasn’t any better; emanating disbelief and anger with her body language. Hadn’t she managed to do the same? Why were these children so negative towards each other? Pathetic.

He patted the child’s head. “Good brat.” The brilliant, near-blinding smile was back. He actually felt proud to be able to see it! Was this emotional manipulation? Did it count as that if it wasn’t intended as one? It worked either way.

He stepped away from the kid and clapped his hands to capture the hellions’ attention. “That was pretty good! Might want to work on that a little bit more, Sasuke. Sakura, even if you kind of got it, you can still make it better, remember? Just like with Tree Walking!” He eye-smiled at her, basking in her frustrated growl. Such an annoying person. Thought she was so great did she? He’d show her. “Something you should all try to do is moderating the area covered - a point will be more vibrant than a full area. It’s a bit tricky to control at first, practice makes perfect. Trying is improving!” Maybe he should change that to the Team’s motto? They really did shit on the current one wholeheartedly.

The break time was over. It was time to get back to his planned training! Sakura’s outburst wasn’t an outburst anymore, just training. Naruto and Sasuke could now imitate it, they were taught in a non-judgmental way - a bit to early on in their shinobi careers, but teamwork was everything - if they didn’t trust Sakura to remain sane, their nonexistent teamwork would surely get even worse.

Time for some taijutsu drills!

* * *

She was annoyed and jittery.

She had discovered another thing the body sucked on - coordination!

She hadn’t been a master at taijutsu, she could admit that.

But why did she feel like a drunk monkey while trying to do the most basic of things?

The body was also very against stretching.

She was dreading what her writing would look like!

She was so tired! She could honestly not remember a time when she had been more tired. Everything hurt. Just when she thought that maybe the killing intent training would let her catch a breather, Kakashi had made her exercise even more! He didn’t deserve to be called sensei by her if he was going to torture her! She was also very hungry. She could probably eat Kakashi if somebody cooked him for her. She could not be bothered to do it herself - it would take too much energy out of her.

She didn’t even remember the taijutsu lesson clearly. All she remembered was a blur, Kakashi correcting her constantly, being told to do the taijutsu stance a hundred times (while being corrected constantly), pain, and some tears. She wondered if the body’s terrible coordination might actually improve with it.

That would be… nice. Maybe?

Would all the pain be worth it in the end even if it did? Probably not.

* * *

Sasuke saw food. Food was nice. It was sustenance. He wanted that. Scratch that. He needed it.

It was so far away! He wouldn’t be able to reach that far.

He groaned. He needed food. Nobody would help him, obviously.

He tried standing up. Failed. Legs hurt too much. Arms hurt too much. A huge ow.

Desperation changed people. Or something. He started slithering towards the food. He was snake. Snake was good. Snake meant no pain.

After about two minutes he reached his goal - the Food.

He took the Food.

He ate the Food.

It was so good! He had actually forgotten how it felt to be ravenously hungry. Now he remembered. He did not know why he’d missed the feeling. It wasn’t nice.

The Food was smiling at him, telling him to go ahead and eat more. He was still hungry. He didn’t know to whom the Food belonged to. He looked at it with longing, imagining himself Eat more… The Food levitated over to his face, tantalizingly offering itself to him. Could he resist?

It seemed to shine invitingly, sending out a mouth-watering scent to him. He felt his resistance shatter. Maybe the person wouldn’t notice? Maybe they wouldn’t care even if the did! The Food booped his nose lightly. It was throwing itself at him! How could he say no to that?

He focused on the Food and reached out, blissfully closing his eyes as he took a bite. So good.

* * *

After the brats ate, they dropped like flies one by one. Naruto’s body’s stamina was fascinating to watch - Sakura had had enough energy to walk over to a nice patch of grass and lay down like a person should. It was cool because the other hellions didn’t manage as much: Sasuke still had some food in his mouth, having fallen asleep while chewing; Naruto on the other hand simply fainted.

Kakashi sat on a tree, reading a random novel from his scroll. He wondered if he’d be able to finish it before the brats were due to be woken up. Akira’s boobs sure were shapely, though. It was a bit tempting to just let the children sleep while he finished of the whole series. Fortunately, he was proficient at not giving into his temptations. Akira would have to wait until he was done with the day. He lived in a grim reality - he wanted to read faster and slower at the same time. Would Monoe show off her cleavage any time soon? And more importantly; would Chisami be able to overcome the evil overlord before he killed her and all of her friends? He flipped another page, greedily taking in the view that was presented to him.

* * *

He was being shaken. His eyes snapped open on instinct, his hand reaching for a kunai to put down his assailant. He swung it in front of him a few times but the shaking didn’t let up. Not civilian then. ANBU? Was he late for Academy again? Iruka-sensei would be pissed! He put away his kunai and quickly got on his feet, eyes already wandering to the left where he kept his alarm clock. Instead, he saw a tree, with a background of more trees. So he wasn’t in his bedroom. Had he been kidnapped again?

Naruto saw Sakura-Sasuke crouching nearby. Now he remembered! He glanced down on his body to make sure he still looked like the Asshole - finding only the stupidly short black sweats that he preferred. How did people dare call Naruto impractical? His tracksuit covered every part of him! His calves hurt even more than before now - they had been scraped raw by the forest’s wildlife during the Death Sprint that Kakashi-sensei had made him do.

Maybe he could change them into something better? Obviously he couldn’t go with something prettily orange as nobody else had good sense. But maybe something longer? Black sucked but it was usual for the Bastard. Nobody would think it was weird if his new stuff was black and not orange! Sakura had changed hers (his?) and Kakashi-sensei didn’t even seem to notice! So it had to be allowed. Although he couldn’t be bothered to spend more time in town than he had to. People were very irritating and imposed themselves on him a lot. He was pretty sure that the Bastard didn’t know any of them. Why did they treat him like royalty whose feet should be kissed? The Bastard wasn’t impressive in any way!

It was impressive in a way: their adoration was almost worse than their hateful scorn. Naruto would sure prefer to go back to his old treatment. Although the discounts were awesome. The Bastard only had to pay about a fifth of what Naruto’s meatsuit did. It almost made it worth it.

Almost.

Kakashi-sensei’s shadow clones showed up again. Did that mean more taijutsu drills? His eyes prickled with tears. His meatsuit hurt too much! He couldn’t do it!

“Chakra training!”

Oh, thank God. Chakra training would definitely hurt less!

His Kakashi-sensei clone headed for him, book nowhere in sight. Naruto swallowed nervously. Experience had taught him that lack of the book during training often meant a lot of pain for him. Who cared about attention? He could get that later! He’d just prank the shite out of the village! They’d give him all the attention he wanted! Kakashi-sensei’s was entirely redundant! Even if it was awesome and he loved it sometimes…

“Today we’ll focus on your chakra control.” He could definitely do that! “The first exercise will be coating your hands evenly with water, making it stick to them with chakra.” What. That sounded completely weird. “Remember how you controlled your chakra to stick to the tree?” The douchebag seemed to be waiting for affirmation. Naruto nodded grudgingly. “Great! Let’s begin!”

* * *

Naruto was forced to eat his words about seven minutes into the torture that was the training. He couldn’t remember a time when he had focused as much as he had during those few minutes. He was already weeping inside his head - how much longer would it take?

Although half an hour later, he had to admit he would have never thought he’d be able to get something so complicated so fast, ever! Kakashi-sensei was good for something. Even if he was a slave driver. Naruto was very curious how many of his classmates had to make themselves socks out of the stream. It sounded much easier than it was - it was way harder than the gloves thing. He could feel his chakra slip all the time. The water peeled of instantly after being applied.

He was the slightest bit glad for the glove thing now. He already knew what he had to do to make it stop peeling off!

* * *

She was very close to murder at this point. Kakashi’s bullshit replies didn’t help what. so. ever. She could feel some killing intent leak out of her, pulsing towards Kakashi. She annoying monster didn’t even seem to notice! She had made Sasuke faint earlier! Either the guy was pathetic (and she was as well - for having fangirled over him for years) or Kakashi was stupidly powerful. Or both.

The tree looked at her judgmentally, jeering at her for being the slowest at such a simple chakra control technique. She hated Naruto’s body so much! She could see Naruto blasting through the exercises assigned to him by Kakashi - and she was still here! Trying to stick to a tree!

Kakashi smiled at her with that idiotic way of his. “You’re nearly there.” he said cheerfully, not even blinking at the sharp peak of her killing intent concentrated on him. What a dick. She knew she wasn’t even close! Did he have to rub it in? She threw herself at the tree again, definitely using up too much energy with her huge moves.

She was so pissed!

* * *

Sasuke bristled as Kakashi put him ashore for the fifth time. He was so tired, he could barely stand. His hands hurt so much by now! The spoon was so heavy and he didn’t want to eat anymore. He was starving - sure. Did it matter? No. He was pretty sure he’d eaten about fifteen thousand calories in the last hour alone. Kakashi kept giving him more food - until he was almost full, then sending him off to burn it all by standing on the water surface.

It was such a pain.

Did he really need chakra that much? He was sure he could work around the teeny tiny chakra storage - he’d just focus on taijutsu, shurikenjutsu and… kenjutsu…

He remembered the day’s taijutsu drills and went back to eating hastily.

* * *

Kakashi eye-smiled at his annoying brats. So thankless. Here he was, wasting his precious jonin time to train them only to get scorn in return. He could be doing much more interesting things - if only he wasn’t being strung down by the teacher-hood. But no matter. He wasn’t surprised. He also had been thankless when his father had drilled him during his childhood. He was much more grateful years later, first when he got to skip the Academy’s boring droning almost completely, then, by letting him survive the war in one piece (physically at least).

The ickle genin would be facing the modern version of war in just a few months - would they be grateful then?

They were barely able to keep standing. Their stamina sucked, bad. No matter. He was sure it was only a matter of time for them to get used to his plan of training. For now he’d go easy on them. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon - enough time for a nice D-rank.

* * *

Naruto only remembered snippets of the rest of the day.

Walking unsteadily to the mission desk.

The shocked face of a chunin that handed out the missions.

Staring blankly at a mission scroll in his hands.

No mission scroll, Naruto-Sakura talking intensely.

Walking through a forest, trying not to collapse.

Sakura talking with Sasuke in front of him.

Sending out his killing intent into the forest.

Sakura-Sasuke holding a cat (what even???).

Cat panicking.

Walking.

Home.

Bed.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, all!  
> This is the first thing I've published in a while so I'm kind of curious how it goes! This plot bunny has been harassing me for at least a month, I just had to write it!
> 
> Kakashi might be cold at first but that's just how he is. He'll need some time to get used to the huge change in his life that their appearance brought on. Sasuke is a tiny bit crazy but I think it should be obvious and not too weird. That experience with That Man (ho ho) really did switch something in his brain. Sakura... I'm trying to make her evolution plausible. She'll be a complete badass, let me tell you. Naruto is a bit scatterbrained. I'm not really sure if I'm capturing him as a character in an okay-ish manner.
> 
> Anyways, it's late. I'm gonna go to sleep with the relieved feeling of finally letting that bunny out to the wild.


End file.
